May 31, 2001, The Philippine Star, Cop in beheading hunted,

May 31, 2001, The Philippine Star, Cop in beheading hunted,

A Quezon City judge ordered yesterday the immediate arrest of a policeman, the fifth suspect in the beheading of three boys, whose bodies were dumped in a vacant lot in a subdivision last April 16. 

Judge Teodoro Bay of Branch 86 said Police Officer 2 Dennis Blasco should be arrested to answer the three counts of murder filed against him and his four companions. 

Blasco, formerly assigned to the Batasan Area (Station 6) of the Central Police District, went into hiding after he learned that he was charged for the brutal slaying of Kenny Azana, Rolando Popanes Jr. and Avelino Galutan Jr., said to be police assets, in Barangay Culiat, Quezon City. 

Aside from Blasco, four other suspects, PO2 Mario Morales, also detailed at Station 6, Romeo Aguado, alias Hapon, Rommel Villas and Almario Bernardino have also been charged and are now locked up at the CPD-Criminal and Investigation Unit detention cell. 

Quezon City prosecutors anchored the murder charges against the suspects on the accounts of mute witness Jerry Franco, who through sign language, recounted how the three victims were beheaded after they were strangled to death on the night of April 16. 

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

According to Franco, Morales and Blasco strangled to death the three victims while Aguado beheaded them in a safe house in Barangay Culiat.– Cecille Suerte Felipe