P.2M bounty up for men behind brutal slay case

A reward of P200,000 has been offered for any information that will lead to the arrest of the men behind the brutal slaying of a woman and her teenage daughter in Caloocan City on Saturday.

Mayor Enrico Echiverri announced the bounty in an e-mail statement released Sunday as police continued to look into the deaths of Faith Jaena, 50, the wife of a seaman; and her daughter Tessa, 15, inside the master bedroom of their house at Palmera Spring 2 in Barangay 123, Caloocan City.

Their bodies, which bore multiple stab wounds, were found by Jaena’s son Timothy at around 8 a.m. on Saturday after he came home from work, the police said.

An initial investigation pointed to robbery as the motive as several valuables belonging to the victims were missing, including cell phones, a laptop computer and pieces of jewelry.

However, the police were also looking into the possibility that the killers had wanted to get back at the victims. This was backed up by the fact that Jaena had been stabbed at least 50 times.

“[The motive] may not be as simple and random as robbery. The killers may have had [a] grudge against the victims,” said Chief Inspector Rodrigo Soriano, head of the Caloocan police investigation unit.

According to probers, Jaena was involved in a small-time lending business, leading them to suspect that a transaction turned sour could have sparked the killings.

Soriano said they were still clueless about the identity of the men who attacked the victims although the team of investigators assigned to the case was expected to come out with computerized images of the suspects based on the description given by witnesses.

He added that several people saw two men drinking on the terrace of the victims’ house at least seven hours before their bodies were discovered.

One of them was described as being of medium build while the other had a much bigger frame. Both were believed to be between 45 and 50 years old.

Soriano said he hoped the reward money would speed up their investigation and lead to the arrest of the killers.