Internet romance winds up in hotel leap

CEBU CITY — Pedestrians and sidewalk vendors agonizing from the hot and humid mid-afternoon here the other day got the shock of their lives when a woman came crashing to the pavement.

The woman, Aurea Sombilon, a 24-year-old Cebuana from Dalaguete town, apparently fearing she might lose the 60-year-old American she first met personally only last May 3, tried to end her life by jumping from the fifth floor of the Mercedes Hotel.

But electrical power lines strung close to the building broke her fall halfway down and she fell to the pavement with just enough force to maim but not to kill.

Passersby and the very man for whose love she had intended to die for, Byron Dean Beatty, an Ohio native, rushed Sombilon to the hospital. She sustained head injuries and fractures.

Sombilon and Beatty first got to know each other last August through the Internet.

Romance blossomed between the two from frequent online chatting, and the smitten American decided to come and marry her.

Beatty arrived in Cebu last Sunday and checked in at the Mercedes Hotel. A wedding was promptly set for May 17.

With a life ahead as husband and wife foremost in their minds, Beatty and Sombilon decided to open a joint bank account, a move which led to the near-fatal turn of events.

Asked for any identification by bank personnel, Sombilon produced postal and school ID cards. The school card showed that she was enrolled in a college course. But when pressed for details, she reportedly admitted having finished only Grade 6.

Rendered suspicious by the contradictory information, Beatty decided to postpone the opening of the joint bank account.

Instead, they decided to go back to Beatty’s hotel room where he began to grill her about the veracity of her conflicting educational background.

Police investigator Juan Osmeña Jr. said a knock on the door eventually silenced the argument.

But when Beatty found no one through the peephole, he flung the door open and stormed out. Osmeña said Sombilon apparently interpreted that as the end of their affair.

Osmeña said the despondent Sombilon then took a chair, clambered up through the window and flung herself into the air.

At about this time, Beatty was making his way downstairs. Upon reaching the lobby, the front desk staffers were all abuzz with the news of a woman who had fallen from the fifth floor.

Attracted by the gathering crowd, Beatty rushed out, only to find out that the subject of all that commotion was Sombilon.

Regaining consciousness at the hospital, Sombilon squelched speculations that the American threw her out of the window, but said Beatty was the cause of it all.

"Siyay hinungdan (He’s the reason)," she told police.

Police nevertheless took Beatty for questioning to check on his background. — Freeman News Service