3 suspects in Cavite slays not ‘fall guys’

A perfect match.

This was the conclusion of Camp Crame’s Scene of the Crime Office (SOCO), saying that the fingerprints of three of four suspects in the June 1 killing of a young housewife and her three-year-old daughter in Cavite matched those that were taken from the crime scene.

Danielito Lalusis, chief of the National Bureau of Investigation’s Cavite district office, said the SOCO report would finally put to rest insinuations by some quarters that the three suspects were "fall guys" and not the real perpetrators of the crime.

Lalusis and his men arrested Mark Leo Molina, his cousin Michael Molina and Sherwin Kenneth Dimasalang after witnesses identified them as those who allegedly tried to rape and later killed Annabelle Quilaton Zuniga, 23, and her daughter, Franchez Erika.

Authorities are still hunting down a fourth suspect, a certain Jojo Dimasalang.

The victims and the suspects were neighbors at the LRT Site in General Mariano Alvarez, Cavite.

Lalusis said Zuniga was found naked, both her hands were tied and her mouth stuffed with a blanket.

Franchez Erika, on the other hand, was strangled to death with a cord and was found wrapped in a blanket.

Lalusis quoted the witnesses as alleging that the suspects were obsessed with Zuniga.

"At the time, no one was willing to come out in the open to testify against the suspects for fear of reprisal," he said.

"Fortunately, a man secretly approached us and claimed that he saw Mark Leo Molina jumping over the concrete fence of the victims’ house," he added.

NBI agents reportedly found Annabelle’s cellular phone in Molina’s possession.