3-year-old girl, 5-year-old boy murdered in Parañaque on New Year’s Day

Fate was unkind to two families in Parañaque City who celebrated New Year’s Day yesterday with news of how their children were raped and murdered on New Year’s Eve.

Six hours after being reported missing, the bodies of Audrey Juanillo, 3; and Rolando Cahigao, 5; were found in a garbage dump.

The girl was raped based on the blood found on her genitals and was strangled to death as evidenced by the marks on her neck.

The boy, the rape victim’s playmate, was beaten to death by a hard object which was repeatedly banged into his head.

Both were killed sometime between 10 p.m. on Saturday to 3 a.m. on Sunday just as people were welcoming the year 2006.

PO3 Eric Sarino of the Parañaque City police said the parents of both children reported that their kids were missing two hours before midnight.

Acting on the report, investigators were sent to search for the missing children and were eventually led to the house of Allan Saludo along Fatima St. in, Barangay San Antonio.

Drunk, the suspect allegedly spoke to the police as if he was about to reveal something so investigators pushed further and managed to draw a confession that he killed the missing children.

Police searched his house but did not find the bodies so they questioned him again and was able to convince him to reveal where he dumped the bodies.

The bodies of Audrey, a resident of no. 4113 De Mayo street, Barangay Baclaran, and Rolando, a resident of Block 8, Budoni St., 4th Estate Subdivision, Barangay San Antonio, were found in a dump at the back of the Jaka Plaza along Dela Paz St., also in Barangay San Antonio.

Sarino said the suspect will face criminal charges of kidnapping, rape, and murder — capital offenses that will send him to the lethal injection chamber if found guilty by a court of law. — Michael Punongbayan