Ex-Ilocos Norte fiscal shot dead

LAOAG CITY — Investigators are looking into a love triangle behind the killing here Sunday night of a 64-year-old lawyer who had led a colorful life as a former Ilocos Norte provincial fiscal and a National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) agent.

Police said former fiscal Patrocinio Aurelio was gunned down inside his car with a caliber .45 pistol in Barangay Calayab here while waiting for a woman companion who was buying a pack of cigarettes from a nearby grocery store.

Duty investigator SPO3 Virgilio Agoto, however, told The STAR that the police were also exploring other angles like the cases that Aurelio had handled while in the prosecution service and while serving as an NBI agent as well as the cases he was dealing with before he was slain.

Agoto said the gunman escaped on board a red Toyota car after pumping four bullets into Aurelio’s body. Four empty caliber .45 shells were found at the crime scene.

The victim’s woman companion, identified as Eugene Duran, 49, of Barangay 4, Laoag City, had alighted from the car and was inside the grocery store when shots rang out.

Duran was said to have recently hired Aurelio as her lawyer.

The former provincial prosecutor was reportedly gunned down in a busy area where besides the grocery store, a bakery-restaurant and a beerhouse are located.

Nobody reportedly came close to recognizing the gunman nor the license plate of his getaway car due to the swiftness of the incident. — with Myds Supnad