Cop in wife slay positive of powder burns

A Quezon City policeman, accused of killing his wife in Marikina City last March 13, has fired a gun recently.

Results of the paraffin tests conducted by the crime laboratory of the Philippine National Police (PNP) on PO1 Elmer Buena, 33, of the Central Police District (CPD) Station 2 in Baler showed him positive of gunpowder nitrates, meaning he had fired a gun. However, Buena, the prime suspect in the killing of his wife, Ma. Morena, 33, refused to tell when and where he fired a gun, said Superintendent Cipriano Querol Jr., Marikina City police chief.

Querol said Buena, upon the advice of his lawyer Nelson Borja, refused to give samples of his hair for DNA test by the crime laboratory in Camp Crame.

"He (Buena) refused to cooperate in our investigation but we are determined to unravel the truth behind the killing of his wife," said Querol noting that parricide charges had already been filed against the policeman-suspect before the Marikina City Prosecutor’s Office.

Querol said the crime laboratory is also determining whether Buena’s issued firearm, a caliber .9mm automatic pistol, was the source of the slug and empty shell recovered near Mrs. Buena’s body.

The body of Mrs. Buena, who was clad in striped sleeveless shirt and naked from the waist down, was found in a grassy portion under a bridge along Marcos Highway in Barangay Calumpang last March 13, the same day she asked permission from her cousin Vivian Pagtalon, 32, to meet her husband.

She was shot in the left ear, the bullet exiting at the back of her head. Elements of the Scene of the Crime Operatives (SOCO) recovered strands of hair from Mrs. Buena’s fingernails which were forwarded to the PNP crime laboratory for DNA testing. – Non Alquitran