Man, two kids found dead inside apartelle

CEBU - In what could be a fit of jealousy that has gone out of hand, a man is believed to have killed his child and her half brother before hanging himself inside an apartelle along Escario St., this city.

Felix Ortiz, 35, a mechanical engineering graduate from Navarra St., Surigao City, was found hanging by the door jamb inside room 211 of The Apartelle while the bodies of the two children were found on the bed. The children – five-year-old Christy May Tabal and her half-brother ten-year-old Christoph Von Borstel, had plastic bags over their heads, which police believe caused their death.

Bernadita Tabal Von Borstel, 38, widow, mother of the two children, who came back to The Apartelle from her place in barangay Guba, Cebu City, to celebrate the birthday of Christoph, was instead met by the ghastly sight.

SPO1 Jay Yballe from the Homicide Section of the Cebu City Police Office (CCPO) said that last Sunday, Bernadita was with Felix and the two children in their rented room. She went home to Guba and left the kids with Felix.

At around 7 a.m. yesterday, Bernadita went back to the said apartelle but began to worry when nobody would open the door and answer the phone of Felix.

Suspecting something wrong, she called her brother and sister-in-law to ask them to help out.

When Isabelo and Dahlia Tabal arrived, they decided to ask assistance from the staff of the apartelle and they forcibly opened the door.

“Ang among naabtan didto sa crime scene si Felix nga patay nang nagbitay gamit ang nylon rope diha duol sa door jamb, unya ang mga bata nagtapad ni nga nag-ubo diha sa katre nga giputos ang mga ulo ug grocery plastic bag,” SPO1 Yballe said.

Isabelo, brother of Bernadita told the reporters, that last Sunday night the couple of the two children even went out for dinner.

Police investigators found a half-filled bottle, whose contents they have subjected to laboratory tests.

The bodies of the children will be autopsied to determine the real cause of death.

Christoph was a son of a late German national, who was married to Bernadita, but died in the year 2000.

When she was widowed, Bernadita met Felix and Christy was borne of that union.

Dahlia Tabal, sister-in-law of Bernadita, said that the live-in partners end their relationship ago years ago.

Bernadita reportedly came back to Cebu from Germany with a fiancée, who is a foreigner.

Bernadita and Felix decided that they should devote some time for their children to meet.

Last December 31, around 3:30 p.m. they all met and checked-in at the apartelle to celebrate the New Year.

Yballe added that Bernadita, during their investigation, confessed that her relationship with Felix had become sour.

No suicide note was recovered from the scene of the crime. — Christopher Gabriel Bonjoc/NLQ   (THE FREEMAN)