Family driver gets 30 years for boss' rob-slay

MANILA, Philippines - A family driver was sentenced to 30 years without parole after a Parañaque City Regional Trial Court found him guilty of robbing and killing his 73-year-old female employer in 2006.

Judge Rolando How of Branch 257 found Rediolan Lazona guilty of robbery with homicide after his fingerprint was found at the crime scene and several pieces of circumstantial evidence pointed to him as the killer of accountant Gloria Mendoza. 

He was also ordered to pay the victim’s husband P400,000 in damages.

Mendoza was preparing for work when she was stabbed 13 times in her bedroom of her house in Sta. Rita Village, Sucat on June 23, 2006.  

Stay-in maid Arve Acabal told the court that Lazona asked her to accompany him to Mendoza so he could borrow money because his wife was giving birth.

When they failed to talk to the victim, Acabal proceeded to the maid’s quarters and left Mendoza in the house.

Some hours later, Mendoza’s husband, Ricardo, who had gone jogging, arrived home and found his wife had been stabbed. He said their bedroom was in disarray and P300,000 he gave her the night before was missing.

Ricardo’s shout summoned Acabal and two plumbers who were outside the house. They helped Ricardo rush the victim’s “still warm” body to Paranaque Medical Center.

The air-conditioner was also removed from the wall, creating an opening through which a person can easily enter. It was in the air-conditioner that police found a fingerprint “identical” to that of Lazona’s, the court said.

Lazona denied the accusations. He said he only went to the Mendozas about 7 a.m. to ask their permission to go to the hospital because his wife had just given birth. Two weeks later, he went to his province in Bacolod, where he was arrested on Sept. 22, 2006.

The judge said the fingerprint as well as Lazona’s “sudden disappearance from the crime scene, his flight to province in Bacolod and his refusal to surrender until his arrest…are telltale signs of guilt.”

How also said that Lazona’s lack of money to pay for hospital expenses, as testified by his sister Emily, is the motive behind the crime.