Angeles 'serial killer' charged today

ANGELES CITY, Philippines – Police are filing multiple murder and robbery charges today against a computer technician tagged as the alleged gadget-obsessed “serial killer” of a number of expatriates here.

Mayor Edgardo Pamintuan said the filing of charges against Mark Dizon, 28, came after pawnshop owners surrendered yesterday a laptop, camera, and cellular phone which the suspect stole from South African national Geoffrey Allan Bennun, 60, and his live-in partner, Abegail Helina, 20.

The bodies of Bennun and Helina, already in a state of decomposition, were found in their house at Oasis Hotel and Villas in Clarkville Compound in Barangay Anunas here last July 12.

Chief Inspector Luisito Tan, head of police Station 4, said at least two witnesses also positively identified Dizon as the one they supposedly saw last July 22 emerging from the house of retired US Air Force M/Sgt. Albert Mitchell, 70, who was killed along with his wife Janet Andrenada, 53, and their house helpers Isabel Fajardo, Marissa Prado, and Yulberto Catli, in his home at Hensonville Court Subdivision in Barangay Malabanias last July 22.

The pawnshop owners told police that Dizon pawned the laptop, camera, and cell phone of the Bennun couple for P20,000 last July 21, a day before the Mitchells were slain.

“I think our local expatriates can now heave a sigh of relief because the suspect has been (identified). We are grateful to them for choosing Angeles as their home and we want them to feel safe and be happy in our city,” Pamintuan said.

Pamintuan said police have also tagged Dizon, who also worked as a reflexologist, as the suspect in the killing last July 16 of Briton James Bolton Porter, 51, and his live-in partner, Melissa Madarang, 22, in their home at Sta. Maria Subdivision in Barangay Balibago here.

Tan said Dizon seemed to have an “abnormal obsession” with gadgets, as he robbed his victims of their laptops and other digital equipment.

Police said laboratory tests also showed that the bullets that killed the victims came from a 9-mm pistol.

Pamintuan said a local court ordered the arrest of Dizon in 2005 for car theft and robbery but he was never arrested.

He quoted reports that in 2005, Dizon also auditioned for a television program in search of new actors.

“It seemed he had known the foreigners who he killed. In 2005, the warrant of arrest cited his alias as Mitchell, which is the name of his latest victim,” Pamintuan said.

Tan said Dizon’s parents were negotiating for his surrender, although plans for him to give himself up yesterday morning did not materialize.

“He is just around. He was recently seen at (a) mall in Tarlac City. Once his parents fail to surrender him, then we will have to swoop down on him,” he said.