More evidence found in Cebu boy’s kidnap

CEBU CITY — Police have found more evidence implicating at least one of the five suspects arrested for the kidnapping of Grade 5 pupil Ryan James Yu here last July 23.

Crime laboratories of the regional and city police announced that they found two sets of fingerprints belonging to at least one of the suspects, in two key locations.

Both offices, however, refused to say to whom does the prints belong, or if they belong to the same suspect or two of the five who stand accused.

The five suspects, Roberto Galope, Jovencio Camado, Edgar Manimog and brothers Henry and Efren Hernandez, were arrested at the Davao airport during the bungled ransom payoff.

They have pleaded not guilty, alleging that they were only hired to pick up the money, not knowing that it was for ransom, and that the police tortured them to admit the crime.

Yu was snatched by three motorcycle-riding men while on his way to school in Peace Valley, Lahug. He was taken to a waiting car in Barangay Sudlon and then brought to a house in BC Homes in Salinas Drive where his abductors abandoned him two days later.

Police checked that house and another one in Peace Valley, near the Yus’ residence, for evidence linking the suspects to the kidnapping.

Senior Inspector Edgar Lenizo, of the regional police crime laboratory, said they lifted prints matching that of one of the suspects at the BC Homes residence.

They wanted to check 15 cigarette butts they found there for DNA in saliva traces and compare those with the suspects’ DNA. But no such expensive testing facility exists here.

Inspector Jonathan Alonsabe, the city police’s crime laboratory chief, said they also found prints on a drinking glass in the Peace Valley house which matched one of the suspects’.

Alonsabe declined to confirm if they belonged to one of the Hernandez brothers, as city police chief Hiram Benatiro earlier mentioned.

Investigators also found numerous hair strands in the bathroom, that will require DNA testing, too. — Freeman News Service