Court clears 3 men, teener of 2008 campus murder

So who killed 19-year-old  Gerry Guiseppe Gatungay?

A Cebu City court yesterday acquitted the three men and a 17-year-old boy accused in the October 2008 murder of  Gatungay, a  college student in barangay Mambaling, Cebu City.

Regional Trial Court Judge Ester Veloso of Branch 6 said the prosecution failed to prove the guilt of Mark Jeus Aquino, Rodney Arias, Danrib Pradilla and a minor.

The judge ordered the four released from the Cebu City Jail.

“These are four innocent persons who languished in jail in a crime they didn’t commit. They  wasted years in jail,” defense lawyer Virgilio Toribio told reporters after the promulgation yesterday.

The mother of murder victim  Gatungay voiced disappointment with the court’s ruling.

“This is an  injustice. (But) I know that  justice will be served, if not on this earth, in heaven,” Teresa Gatunggay told  reporters.

Gatungay,  a third year mechanical engineering student of Don Bosco Technological College, was killed  at the campus site.

A 17-year-old earlier admitted  participation in the crime and served as  a state witness by the prosecution but the court was unsatisfied with his testimonies.

The judge questioned the youth’s account of the weapon used in stabbing Gatunggay.

“(The witness’) failure to identify the correct murder weapon raises questions on his credibility,” the judge said.

Judge Veloso said while the witness knew the difference between a knife and a screwdriver, he could not make up his mind which weapon was used in the killing.

The youth  claimed to  be  four to five meters away from the scene of the crime. He earlier  insisted that the accused used a screwdriver.

But the court took into consideration the testimony of a forensic expert who said the weapon used to kill the victim was “sharp-bladed.”

“If it were true that a screwdriver was the weapon used, the victim would have suffered puncture wounds. In this case, the victim sustained three stab wounds,” the judge said.

Judge Veloso said the witness youth meant he could still “be easily coerced, threatened, intimidated and cowed into submission.”  The court noted inconsistencies when the witness testified in court.

In his sworn affidavit, the witness described one of the suspects to be as  as tall as him “with a pudgy face and fair complexion.”

However, during his testimony in court, the witness admitted that Aquino was taller than him, didn’t have a pudgy face or a fair complexion.

The witness later admitted he was a  thief and a member of the Crips youth gang.

The youth said Aquino and Arias stabbed the victim while Pradilla and the minor acted as lookouts. Reporter Ador Vincent Mayol