Slain lotto winner’s wife faces probe

Police will invite for questioning a woman to shed light on the death of her husband who was killed by robbers last Sunday, two weeks after she won P19.6 million in the state-run lottery.

But Antipolo City police chief Superintendent Jose Dayco made it clear that they are still not considering Leticia Eufemia, 52, a suspect in the murder of her husband Arturo.

However, investigators want to check out neighborhood speculation that she probably masterminded the killing to keep her lotto winnings to herself, Dayco said.

"At present, we have no sufficient evidence linking her to her husband’s death," he said. Dayco earlier said it is possible that the victim’s friends or neighbors might know the suspects.

Police earlier said Eufemia, along with her daughter, went to a relative’s house at Camp Crame, the national police headquarters in Quezon City, a day before Arturo, 58, was killed.

She left when she saw suspicious-looking men watching their Antipolo home, leaving her husband and their son to look after the house, they said.

It was not immediately clear if Eufemia had warned her husband, whose body now lies at their home. Dayco said Eufemia had not yet come back from Quezon City, presuming that she was still in shock and fearful that the killers might come back for her.

Seven masked men barged into the victim’s house at around 1 a.m. and shot dead Arturo, a taxi driver, after a drinking spree at his home, investigators said.

After ransacking the house, the suspects took off with the victim’s brand new Toyota Grandia van and an undetermined amount of money.

A neighbor, Rico Guatno, said he heard the commotion and called the "117" police hotline for help policemen arrived too late as the suspects had fled.

Police sources said the wife won the Oct. 12 lottery draw, run by the state-run Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO). She took P5 million and deposited the rest of the prize in a bank.

Neighbors, however, said the Eufemias – apparently fearing they might get robbed – denied winning the lottery, claiming they made money by selling hectares of idle land that they owned.

The PCSO said a woman from Antipolo City’s barangay San Roque district was the sole winner of the jackpot. As a policy, the PCSO does not identify winners to protect them from would-be robbers.

Neighbors said they believed the Eufemias won the lottery because the victim – who came from a poor family and was believed to be jobless – hosted a drinking spree each night at his home for the past two weeks since the lottery draw.