May 26, 2001, The Philippine Star, 2 CPD cops face charges for beheading of 3 boys

May 26, 2001, The Philippine Star, 2 CPD cops face charges for beheading of 3 boys

A Quezon City prosecutor found probable cause to indict two members of the Central Police District (CPD) and three cohorts for beheading three boys, whose bodies were dumped in a vacant lot in a subdivision last month.

Assistant prosecutor Antonio Lim said three counts of murder should be filed against PO2 Mario Morales, PO2 Dennis Blasco, both assigned to the CPD-Batasan Area (Station 6), Romeo Aguado, alias Hapon, Rommel Villas and Almario Bernardino, all police informers.

Aside from Blasco, who is being hunted by operatives of the CPD-Criminal Investigation Unit, the four other suspects are locked up at the CPD-CIU detention cell.

Lim anchored the charges against the suspects on the accounts of a mute witness, who through sign language, recounted how the three victims, Kenny Azana, Rolando Popanes Jr. and Avelino Galutan Jr. were beheaded after they were strangled to death on the night of April 16.

Their headless bodies were later found in a vacant lot in Cresta Verde Subdivision, Barangay Sta. Monica, Novaliches, Quezon City the same night.

Lim said mute witness Jerry Franco disclosed the participation of each of the suspects in the killings when CPD investigators interrogated him about three days after the brutal slayings.

Through his re-enactment, Franco disclosed that Morales and Blasco strangled the three victims to death and Aguado beheaded them in a safe house in Barangay Culiat, Quezon City. Bernardino had tied his hands after Villas and Blasco picked him up while he was sleeping, under a flyover in Barangay Culiat. – Cecille Suerte Felipe