Policemen investigating writer’s alleged suicide

The Homicide Section of the Cebu City Police Office is now investigating the alleged suicide of a weekend columnist of a Cebu newspaper.

Ana Maria Escalante-Neri was reportedly found by her husband Jerome Dominic Neri hanging from wire tied to the handle of a cabinet in their house along Ramon Aboitiz Street, barangay Camputhaw Friday afternoon.

Jerome told investigators that he was at the house of his parents in Bahuna Drive, barangay Banilad that afternoon and called his wife through her cellular phone. When she did not answer he decided to go home and check on her.

When he got home he went to their room and knocked on the door but got no reply. He eventually used a paintbrush handle to force the locked door open and saw his wife unconscious hanging from wire tied to the cabinet handle and called for help.

He and several others brought Ana Maria to the Chong Hua Hospital.

A team of homicide investigators went to the house of the couple for scene investigation and recovered the wires allegedly used in the suicide.  But the police were not able to get details about the incident from Jerome because he was busy attending to his wife in the Intensive Care Unit at that time.

It was the father-in-law of Ana Maria, Julius Neri, who approached the investigators and assured them they will come to their office for the incident.

Ana Maria died early morning last Sunday.

Her father, Edward Escalante, has asked the police to investigate the case and have the body autopsied.

Homicide Section chief Mario Monilar said he is still waiting for the result of the autopsy from the PNP Crime Laboratory to ascertain the cause of her death.   — Edwin Ian Melecio/BRP