Two household helpers were brutally killed, one of them believed also raped, in the house of their employer at Banyan-Pinyan streets at the Villa Angela Subdivision in Brgy. Villamonte, Bacolod City yesterday.

The victims’ mothers identified them as Joyce Boncaya, 17, and Keen Malunes, 16, both of Brgy. Manghanoy, La Castellana, Negros Occidental. They said the two are second cousins.

The police immediately formed Task Force Villa Angela and were able to arrest one of the suspects at the  Purok Relocation Site in Brgy. Vista Alegre several hours after the crime. Bacolod City Police officer-in-charge Senior Supt. Ricardo de la Paz, however, refused to name him as the charges have not yet been filed.

Fire Officer 1 Myron Gallo, brother-in-law of the household helpers’ employer, engineer Alif Esparagoza, said their employers left the house at about 10 a.m. yesterday to attend a Sunday service.

Gallo said that when they came home at past 11 a.m., he called for the helpers and they were not answering, he decided to check their room and was surprised to see them lying on the floor, bathed in their own blood.

Boncaya was declared already dead, while Malunes died while being treated at the Bacolod Doctor’s Hospital.

Station 4 case investigator Police Officer 2 Raymond Bandojo said that, aside from the cellular phones of the victims, there were no other items missing from the house.

Bandojo said the weapons used by their killer, or killers, could not be found.

De la Paz said they arrested the suspect through the help of a witness, who is a deaf mute. They sought the help of a sign language interpreter and conducted a re-enactment of the incident.

The witness claimed that the suspects entered the house by opening the main door and climbed the concrete wall at the car park when they fled, police investigation showed.

A manhunt to arrest the other suspect was ongoing last night.

AUTOSPY

City Medico Legal Officer Ely Cong, who conducted the autopsy on the victims, said they were hit in the head with hard objects that caused blunt trauma and led to their deaths.

Cong said that, aside from head injuries, he did not see any other wounds in their bodies. He also noted the possibility that Boncaya had been molested, as there were “excessive” secretions of fluid from her sexual organ.

WEEPING PARENTS

The parents of the victims, who came all the way from La Castellana yesterday, wept when they saw the lifeless bodies of their daughters at the Alisbo Memorial Chapels in Bacolod City.

Alma, Boncaya’s mother, said the last time she spoke to her daughter was on Thursday, whem she said she was  coming home on April 4 or 5 to attend their barangay fiesta.

She said her daughter, the second of five siblings, had been working at the residence of Esparagoza for three months now. She added that, despite being underage, her daughter was forced to work as they do not have any other means of livelihood aside from planting sugarcane.

Annaliza, the mother of Malunes, meanwhile, said she had asked her daughter not to return to work yet when she went home to La Castellana on Friday.

Annaliza said her daughter, who had been a household helper for a year now, had plans of quitting the job to pursue her studies next year.

Asked for her message to her daughter’s assailants, Annaliza said she is praying that their conscience will haunt them and will not let them sleep at night until they repent for what they did.*APN

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