Family of 4 hacked to death in Albay village

LEGAZPI CITY – Police are still clueless on the fatal hacking of a couple and their two children aged six and five months in a remote village in Ligao City last Thursday night. A third child survived the attack.

Senior Superintendent Guillermo Paguio, Albay police director, said the bodies of Estimon Luminario, 50, and his wife, Marites, 23, were found inside their house in Barangay Cabarian, and those of six-year-old Abigail and five-months-old Rose about 100 meters away from their dwelling.

Four-year-old Loreto, one of Marites’ two children with her former live-in partner, a certain Jogie Cedeno (the other is Abigail), survived the carnage. He is now undergoing post-trauma treatment.

"We are closely investigating all the angles in this massacre to find out the motive behind it," Paguio told The STAR.

Chief Inspector Arnel Rabe, Ligao City police chief, said Ambrocio Tonacao, chairman of Barangay Cabarian, about 40 kilometers west of Ligao City, reported the killing at about 7 a.m. last Friday.

Autopsy showed Estimon, Marites and Abigail died from hack wounds in the neck, while five-months-old Rose sustained a deep wound in the back.

Del Rosario said the killings probably occurred between 9 p.m. last Thursday and 1 a.m. the following day.

Investigation showed that Marites had lived in with Cedeno, 28, a resident of Barangay Tagburawan, Ligao City, before she married Luminario with whom she bore Rose.