Negros man hunted for balikbayan aunt's killing

MANILA, Philippines - Police have launched a massive manhunt for a nephew of a 54-year-old American citizen, whose body was found in a newly excavated septic tank near her house in San Carlos City, Negros Occidental last Friday night.

Senior Superintendent Manuel Felix, Negros Occidental police director, said 20-year-old David Alegre was being tracked down for the murder of his aunt Josefina Furber.

Police and barangay officials found Furber’s body wrapped in a plastic bin bag on Friday or 15 days after Alegre reported her as missing. She arrived nearly two weeks earlier.

Police said Alegre claimed that his aunt left for Cebu City last March 14 and was due to return to San Carlos on March 18, but failed.

Police, however, doubted Alegre’s claim, as Furber’s mother, Apolonia Canete, said her daughter did not tell her that she would go to Cebu.

Investigation showed that Alegre hired four minors on March 14 to dig the hole supposedly for a septic tank, but discontinued the work and ordered the hole cemented the following day.

A check in the hole yielded Furber’s body, which bore a stab wound in the right side of the neck and contusions on the head.

Furber’s family suspects that the killing might have something to do with the P100,000 withdrawn from her bank account after she disappeared. – Cecille Suerte Felipe, Sheila Laude and Antonieta Lopez