Police link former computer stude to three Albay killings

LEGAZPI CITY — Police are seeking an arrest warrant to finally hunt down a 21-year-old former computer student whom they have identified as the principal suspect in three sensational killings in Albay last year.

In a press briefing at Camp General Simeon Ola here the other day, Chief Superintendent Rodolfo Tor, Bicol police director, identified one Jesse Ray Otañez, alias Michael Sarmiento, as the alleged "serial killer" responsible for the deaths of nurse Ma. Isabel Juarez, beauticians Marilyn Jentalan and Agnes Bagalay, and Australian couple Augustus and Corazon Kuhle.

Otañez has already been charged for slashing the throat of Juarez, a nurse of St. Joseph Medical Clinic in Ligao City, on March 3 last year.

Investigators linked Otañez to the Kuhle couple’s killing in Barangay Bonot here on Sept. 7 last year after they found his name in Corazon Kuhle’s diary.

A tricycle driver also positively identified Otañez in a photo gallery as the one who came out of the Kyama building in Barangay Bonot, flagged down a tricycle and loaded several boxes and computer equipment after the couple’s murder.

Ballistic test results showed that the slugs found in the heads of Jentalan and Corazon Kuhle were fired from the suspect’s homemade caliber .38 revolver, said Senior Superintendent Pedro Tango, Albay police director.

Relatives of Corazon Kuhle told probers that a certain Michael Sarmiento negotiated the sale of the Australian couple’s house on behalf of a relative from London.

Police recovered pawnshop papers for Juarez’s jewelry as well as the suspect’s gun. Otañez reportedly sold the slain nurse’s cellular phone to a police asset last March 20.

Tango said a witness overheard Otañez bragging that he shot dead two women who had refused to dance with him inside a beauty parlor.

"The suspect even showed his caliber .38 revolver to prove it," Tango said.

Superintendent Francisco Uyami, Legazpi City police chief, said his men found the gun, a computer motherboard and power supply in a garbage heap near Otañez’s boarding house along Washington Drive here last March 27.

Uyami said the boarders had also complained about cellphone thefts.

Roberto Padilla, brother of Corazon Kuhle, said he was glad that the suspect has been identified.

"I’m very satisfied with the handling of the case, and I don’t want the murder of my sister and brother-in-law (just to be forgotten)," Padilla said during the press conference.