Suspect in killing of comedian’s pa arrested

LUCENA CITY, Philippines – Police have arrested a suspect in last Tuesday’s killing of the father of comedian-magician Jeffrey Tam in Tayabas, Quezon.

The suspect, Patrick Nobleza, 21, owned up to the crime after he was accosted in his house in Barangay Cotta, Lucena City on Thursday afternoon, said Superintendent Allen Go, Lucena City police chief.

Go said Nobleza was an acquaintance of Tam’s father Alfredo Francisco, 67, whose body was found by the roadside at the boundary of Tayabas and Lucena cities last Tuesday morning.

Go said Nobleza recounted that he got irked when he and the elder Tam had a verbal tussle inside the latter’s car.

Nobleza alleged that the elder Tam pounded him several times in the chest, prompting him to retaliate using a hard object, Go said.

Nobleza was identified with the help of closed-circuit television footage near a warehouse in Lucena City where he abandoned the elder Tam’s car. – With Michelle Zoleta