Coincidences blamed for woman’s death

Wearing a blue and white striped T-shirt and going to a store late at night may have been ill-advised for a 28-year-old housewife who was shot and killed in Manila before midnight on Monday.

Homicide investigators of the Manila Police District (MPD) speculated that Gloria Akim could have been mistaken for somebody else.

The victim, a resident of Adriatico Street in Malate, was declared dead on arrival by doctors at Ospital ng Maynila from a single gunshot wound in the head.

PO3 Bernard Cayabyab of the MPD homicide section said that at around 11:30 p.m. on Friday, Akim was buying laundry soap from a sari-sari store on President Quirino Avenue in Malate, when two men approached her. One of them pulled out a gun, shot her at close range in the head before he and his companion fled on a motorcycle parked at a nearby basketball court.

Cayabyab said the two men even tried to distract residents in the area by telling them that the shot was fired by a policeman.

According to Cayabyab, they suspect that the gunmen may have mistaken Akim for the woman who duped them in an earlier drug deal.

“A witness informed us that the suspected female drug dealer bought something at the same store a few minutes before Akim arrived,” the police prober said, adding that the victim closely resembled the alleged target.

Both of them were also dressed in a blue and white striped T-shirt.

“We are inclined to believe it is a case of mistaken identity since Akim and her husband have no known enemy,” he said.

Cayabyab told the Inquirer that he tried to talk to the other woman, whom he did not identify, but she immediately excused herself after a brief chat with him.