‘Jealous’ Tuguegarao cop shoots wife dead in Manila

A policeman based in Tuguegarao City came all the way to Manila and allegedly shot his wife dead in a jealous rage late Wednesday afternoon.

Police Officer 1 Nathan Legasi, a member of the 1st Maneuver Company of the Police Regional Office 2–2nd Regional Public Safety Battalion, fled after killing his wife Krizzia, a 26-year-old nurse, in the room she was renting in Sampaloc, police said.

An investigator at the Manila Police District said Legasi killed his spouse, then in Manila to apply for a job overseas, in an apparent fit of jealousy.

“According to the victim’s family he (Legasi) always showed signs of jealousy whenever Krizzia got calls on her mobile phone,” said Police Officer 3 Alonzo Layugan of the MPD’s homicide section.

Layugan said the couple, who had been married for six years, used to live with Krizzia’s parents in San Gabriel Village, Tuguegarao City.

Investigation showed that Krizzia was in her room at the NIC Apartment on Manrique Street, Sampaloc, when Legasi arrived at around 2:30 p.m. on Wednesday and introduced himself to the landlady as “Joshua Pacete of Mabalacat, Pampanga.”

Legasi then asked if he could stay for five days and promptly paid the P950 rent after the landlady, Irene Castillo, led him to a room on the second floor.

An hour later, the apartment’s maintenance man, Lawrence Samonte, heard a woman’s scream from one of the upper rooms, followed by a gunshot.

Samonte ran up the stairs and encountered a man with a backpack hurrying on way his down and hiding something behind his back. He later found Krizzia dead in her room.

Layugan said Krizzia was shot in the face with a .45-cal. pistol.

Before the shooting, the victim had been renting a room on the third floor for the past two weeks, he said. “Apparently her husband followed her in Manila without her knowledge and got the room on the second floor as Joshua Pacete,” Layugan told the Philippine Daily Inquirer.

Layugan said that when witnesses in the apartment were shown pictures of the victim’s husband, they immediately recognized him as the man who introduced himself as Pacete.

“The victim’s parents said he (Legasi) did not want his wife to work because he did not want her to meet another man. He followed her in Manila because he was afraid she had met somebody else,” investigator said.