Another Australian found dead in suitcase

ANGELES CITY – Has this city become hazardous to tourists?

A few days after an Australian national survived a bullet wound inflicted by holduppers, police here found on Wednesday the body of yet another Australian national in his apartment in Villasol Subdivision here.

PO1 Marian Trinidad of Police Station 4 here identified the latest victim as Keith Joseph Cook, 68, whose body was found in a suitcase at his rented Unit 3 Jessie Magbag Apartment 4-26, California street, Villasol Subdivision in Barangay Anunas, only a few kilometers from the Fields Avenue tourist belt in this city.

She said police probers uncovered Cook’s body on Tuesday after neighbors complained of stench coming from his apartment. The victim’s body has several stab wounds, she said, even as she denied earlier reports that the body was chopped into several pieces.

Last week also, 56-year-old Australian Raymund Kelly survived a gunshot wound inflicted on his face by two holduppers who took off his gold bracelet along Fields Avenue. One of the two motorcycle-riding suspects were identified by Kelly’s companion from the police’s roque gallery but they have remained at large.

Trinidad admitted economic hardships brought about by rising cost of basic needs could be a factor in the recent crimes against tourists in this city.

In the case of Cook, however, three suspects were arrested after a relative of one of them was stricken in conscience and talked to the police.

The suspects were identified as Jay Cris Magtalon, 27, Rose Marie Velasquez, 31, and a 17-year-old boy whose name was not revealed as he is a minor. The three were arrested the other day at their residence at the next unit of Cook’s apartment.

Chief Inspector Luisito Tan, Station 4 deputy police chief, said that the murder was committed during the heavy rains on Saturday.

Tan said they were arrested after one Apple Jenny Dagumdan, 20, a sister of the underaged suspect and stepsister of Magtalon, told the police what she earlier heard from the suspects about the murder.

Dagumdan said she and her boyfriend, Jayson Haman, arrived at the suspects’ apartment for a visit the day before the crime. She said she saw the two male suspects wearing gloves and armed with knives.

She said the two informed her of their plans to kill Cook. She said she and her boyfriend went back to Olongapo City after they were warned to keep mum about the murder plans carried out last Saturday.

Bothered by their conscience, however, Dagumdan and her boyfriend called up the local police from their home in Olongapo on Wednesday to reveal the murder plot. At the time they called, the police had already uncovered Cook’s body after neighbors complained of foul smell. The suspects were arrested on the same day in their next door apartment.    – With Ric Sapnu