Robbers kill Australian trader

ILOILO CITY – Robbers stabbed dead an Australian national inside his house in Ajuy town and carted away P1.2 million in cash and jewelries early morning yesterday.

Senior Superintendent Ricardo de la Paz formed yesterday Task Force Werner to investigate and solve the robbery and killing of Werner Holz, 71 years old, and said to be a retired police in Australia. The Task Force is composed of probers from the Ilo­ilo Provincial Police Office, the Ajuy police, the Regional Intelligence Office, 6th Criminal Investigation and Detection Group, and the Scene of the Crime Operatives.

Police have yet no identities of the robbers, who all wore bonnets, De la Paz said.

The robbers made away with P200,000 in addition to $5,000, and jewelries worth about P800,000, De la Paz said.

Holz, a burly man, was stabbed 21 times, with the fatal wound in the neck, the provincial police chief said.

De la Paz said that the robbers entered the house through the back door at past 12 midnight, after the victim went out of their house in Barangay Pili, Ajuy town to take a pee. Two robbers accosted Holz at knifepoint, while the third held the victim’s wife, 31-year-old Vivian. 

De la Paz said the victim and his wife initially resisted the robbers but were overpowered. The thieves forced the wife to open the safe, where the cash and valuables were kept.

The victim and his wife are engaged in lending, and buying and selling of rice and corn, and own a piggery also in Ajuy. Holz settled in Ajuy town after his retirement in Australia.

De la Paz said the robbers may have a contact in the community, because they were able to pattern the movements of the couple, including the victim’s habit of going out of the house around midnight to relieve.

Likewise, the day before the robbery, the victim had with him about P200,000 from their lending business.

The killing of Holz, the second heinous crime in the province, follows the beheading of 18-year-old Eduardo Lozarito Jr. in Dumangas town last week. “The first week of the year appears to be on a bloody start,” De la Paz said.