NBI to get custody of murder suspect in US

A Filipino seaman, who allegedly hid in the United States following the grisly murders of his wife and three children in Nueva Vizcaya last April, will be deported to the custody of the National Bureau of Investigation.

NBI director Reynaldo Wycoco told reporters yesterday that Danilo Afalla, 40, a native of Nueva Vizcaya and resident of Block 19, Lot 2, Golden City Subdivision, Taytay, Rizal, will be handed to the bureau as soon as the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) deports him.

According to lawyer Ricardo Diaz, head of the NBI’s International Police Division, the bureau became aware of the crime through a certain Edgar Mannag.

Mannag, the NBI said, discovered the victims’ shallow graves at the bank of the Magat River in Barangay Don Mariano Marcos, Bayombong, Nueva Vizcaya in the morning of April 17.

Immediately, the NBI dispatched a team of agents the following day and recovered the cadavers of Recy Afalla, 40, the suspect’s wife, and their children Chinny Claire, 13; Mark Anthony, 11; and Michael Angelo 5.

Wycoco said the bodies of the victims were wrapped in bed sheets. Their heads were wrapped in plastic bags and their hands and feet bound with rope. It was earlier reported that the victims were allegedly killed by the suspect after a fit of jealousy.

NBI forensic experts said the victims were bludgeoned to death as shown by fractures and wounds in their heads. The NBI added that the victims had been dead for at least four days when their bodies were discovered.

The NBI’s Bayombong office and the bureau’s Interpol Division later sought the assistance of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the US Marshall’s Office after it was learned that the suspect had left the country after the incident and had jumped ship in the Port of Miami, Florida.

Last Saturday, US marshals swooped down on the suspect’s rented apartment in downtown Miami and arrested him.

Upon his arrival in the country, Afalla will face multiple parricide charges in the Municipal Trial Court of Bayombong, Nueva Vizcaya. – Mike Frialde