Nursing senior slain in holdup

In 24 days she would have realized her dream of becoming a nurse. Instead she is dead.

A female senior nursing student at the Cebu Doctors University, who would have graduated with about 500 others on March 20, was shot dead shortly after midnight Wednesday by two robbers on a motorcycle who wanted nothing more than just her cellphone.

Ruby Jade Ruba, 20, a native of Macrohon, Southern Leyte, was with a female classmate named Dia Rudas just outside a dormitory of yet another classmate on Gov. Roa Street, trying to borrow an adoptor for a laptop computer they were to use for a project that was required before graduation, said police investigator Jay Yballe.

As they were texting the classmate to come out with the adoptor, Yballe said, two men on a motorcycle drove by and, on noticing Ruby holding a cellphone, stopped and pulled a gun.

When the two girls saw the gun, they promptly tried to scamper away to safety. But a shot rang out and one of the girls fell.

It was Ruby, shot mercilessly in the back by the robbers, who then fled with the cellphone.

Police Inspector Mario Monilar, chief of the Homicide Section, said the Theft and Robbery Section is being brought into the case because of the apparent motive which was robbery.

It was actually the second time Ruby and Dia had gone to the dormitory. Earlier, they had gone there to borrow the laptop but it was not until they got to the house of Dia in Punta Princesa, where they were to spend the night finishing the project, that they realized they had forgotten to bring along the adoptor.

As fate would have it, they had to go back to get the gadget, and it was then that they crossed paths with the robbers.

Had it not been very late in the night, the two girls would have been allowed inside the dorm. But by the time they got there the second time around to get the adoptor, the gates were already closed, so they had to text their classmate inside to just bring the adoptor out to them.

But before she could start texting, Ruby realized she had no more load credits, so she and Dia walked to a nearby convenience store to load up. Once done, they went back to the dorm and started texting. It was then that the robbers drove by.

After Ruby fell from the gunshot, Dia said she saw four or five men running toward her, prompting her to start screaming.

As it turned out, the young men were fellow Cebu Doctors University students also staying in the area and who had come running to help. But because Dia had started screaming, they too also fled.

A security guard from one of the nearby establishments brought Ruby to the Cebu Doctors Hospital just nearby, but efforts to save her failed and she died about an hour later.

Police investigators said the killer used a .38 caliber handgun as shown from an empty shell found at the scene.

Cebu City police chief Patrocinio Comendador believes the robbers were high on drugs.

Meanwhile, about two hours later and not far from where the killing happened, a Dutch national named Melessen Henderikos, 60, was shot and slightly injured in the head while being robbed of P6,000 cash by two men at corner Manalo and Aboitiz streets.

Alert police and anti-crime volunteers, however, managed to prevent the assailants from escaping, and Isabelo Fernandez and Leonardo dela Cruz were arrested.

Dela Cruz was found to be facing murder and robbery cases in Bohol and had long been suspected of involvement in several robberies in Cebu City, said police Senior Inspector Michael Anthony Bastes.

The two were subjected to paraffin tests to determine if they were not involved in the killing of Ruby hours earlier.

At City Hall, Mayor Tomas Osmeña offered a P30,000 reward for the immediate arrest of the suspects in the killing of Ruby.

The mayor said he was saddened by the killing of Ruba and offered financial and burial assistance to her family. (/JST)