Guard admits killing Cebu teenager, denies love triangle angle

CEBU CITY—Jealousy drove a 35-year-old security guard to kill 14 year-old girl whom he was reportedly infatuated with, police said Monday.

Police Brig. Gen. Debold Sinas, Central Visayas regional police chief, said Jessie Mediquillo got jealous when he learned that Tesa Marie Ygay had a boyfriend.

“It (the killing) is a classic example of crime of passion,” said Sinas in a news conference Monday afternoon.

Mediquillo, who was presented by Sinas to the media, admitted killing the girl.

He, however, said he was not attracted to her.

He said he stabbed Ygay and dumped her body into a septic tank because he was upset with the girl’s father who blamed him for his daughter’s late night-outs.

“I was bothered by my conscience. But I did that (killed Ygay) because I was angry with her father,” he said in Cebuano.

Mediquillo denied having  feelings for  the girl whom he said he treated like a niece.

The girl’s body was discovered in the septic tank of Cogon Cruz Integrated School in Danao City by a school utility worker due to the stench that wafted from the area.

Police considered Mediquillo a person of interest after the girl’s family claimed that he had been courting the teenager.

Ygay also told her brother that Mediquillo threatened to kill her and her boyfriend after he learned of their relationship.

“My younger sister told me that Mediquillo planned to kill her and her boyfriend because of jealousy,” Ygay’s 17-year-old brother said.

Mediquillo said he repeatedly stabbed the victim inside the school guardhouse and later wrapped her body with a sleeping mat.

An autopsy showed that Ygay sustained 34 stab wounds.

Mediquillo surrendered a friend who worked in the barangay hall in Tabuelan town, northern Cebu, last April 12 after he learned that the police were after him.

The police then fetched him the same day./gsg