Castro family requests cops to monitor 3 security guards

The family of rape-slay victim, Candice Castro, yesterday asked police to closely monitor the movements of three security guards who are probable witness to the crime.

The mother’s victim, Grace Castro, expressed apprehension that the three security guards present in the vicinity of the crime scene at the Vallejo Tower Condominium at Leon Guinto in Manila when the killing took place have been transferred to other posts.

"I could not recall their names at the moment, but I heard they have been transferred to other posts. Police investigators should be in constant touch with these guards for they could still provide vital information about the killing of my daughter," she said.

A police officer, privy to the on-going investigation on Castro’s death who requested anomity, however, assured the Castro family that they are in constant touch with the three guards, who have given police assurance of their availability if needed.

Candice, a bank employee, was brutally killed inside her condominium unit last May 12. She sustained 24 stab wounds in the body.

The National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) and the Western Police District (WPD) launched a massive manhunt against the alleged mastermind, a certain Babes Reyes, a son of an intelligence officer of the Bureau of Immigration.

NBI Director Reynaldo Wycoco gave an ultimatum for Reyes to surrender but the deadline has lapsed last Thursday night.

Lawyer Edmund Arugay, chief of the NBI-National Capital Region (NCR), said his men are now in the field to arrest Reyes, who has sent surrender feelers but failed to show up.

Reyes was implicated in the killing by another suspect, Philippe Marcelo, a resident at the sixth floor of Vallejo Tower.

Investigators said Marcelo’s footprints with bloodstains were traced from the victim’s place to his unit at the 6th floor. Police used luminal test, a process in which traces of blood are seen even if it has been cleaned.

Marcelo said it was Reyes, who ordered the killing. No one has so far corroborated his allegation but police have also hinted that Reyes could not have killed Castro alone because of his light built.

"Ang liit lang ni Reyes kayang-kaya siya ni Candice (Reyes is only small, Candice can easily defeat him)," a police investigator said. The theory of the police was echoed by some NBI agents, who could not take Marcelo’s alibi that it was Reyes who attacked Candice.