Taxi driver’s widow ambushed

A widow of a taxi driver/operator who was murdered in a Manila hospital late last year by a killer who sneaked in was shot dead in an ambush yesterday.

Twenty-three-year-old Rochelle Francisco’s father, Rogelio Halili, 46, who was with her, was seriously wounded. Both sustained several gunshot wounds.

According to Detective Richard Lumbad at least two gunmen in bonnets and jackets blocked the victims’ car at the corner of Ma. Guizon and G. Perfecto streets in Juan Luna, Tondo past 10 a.m. They sprayed the car with bullets and casually walked away.

Francisco was killed while her father, a firefighter, was seriously wounded.

In December, Francisco’s husband, Rommel, was stabbed to death while he was recuperating from a gunshot wound in the Metropolitan Hospital.

Francisco’s husband, a taxi driver/operator, was shot by one his passengers on Dec. 10 in Malate.

Ten days later, Francisco, hospital officials and personnel were shocked to find Rommel dead in his hospital bed.

Hospital personnel said they saw nothing unusual, leaving the police to suspect that the killer was disguised as a doctor or nurse. Francisco, who was watching over her husband, had told the police that she was in the hospital room the whole time and the killer probably struck when she was asleep.