Mom, 2 kids massacred inside their home in Negros

CEBU CITY—A mother and her two young children were hacked to death while her two-year-old daughter was wounded after they were attacked inside their home in Barangay Tambulan, Tayasan town, Negros Oriental about midnight of Friday.

The fatalities were identified as Mergie Esteban Eslao, 22; son Wilfred, 6, and daughter Larrabel, 5.
Another daughter, two-year-old Annabel suffered a stab wound in the stomach and was recuperating in a hospital in Dumaguete City, about 93 km from Tayasan.

Insp. Fred Redira, acting police chief of Tayasan, said investigation was being conducted to determine the motive and the identity of the perpetrators who attacked the victims inside their house in Sitio Calantocan, Barangay Tambulan, Tayasan.

He said they were looking into the possibility that the perpetrators wanted to get back at Mergie’s husband, Werlie, 24, who was suspected to be behind the series of thefts of farm animals in the neighborhood.

Redira said that two years ago, an unidentified armed man went inside their house and had threatened Werlie’s family. A member of Werlie’s group was also killed recently, he added.

The police chief said the crime was discovered by Mergie’s father, Wally, who lived about 100 meters away.
Wally’s wife, Terry, was awakened by screams and cries of a child coming from Mergie’s house about 1 a.m. on Friday. She asked her husband to check out the commotion.

Wally asked a tanod to accompany him to Mergie’s house.

Redira said Wally and the tanod had to destroy the rope that locked the door of the house before they could get inside.

The grandfather found the body of Wilfred sprawled on the kitchen area. The boy had stab wounds in the chest, left shoulder and arm and a hack wound at the back.

Mergie was found lying on top of two-year-old Annabel, apparently trying to shield the baby from the attack. Mergie suffered 16 hack and stab wounds while Annabel had a stab wound in the abdomen.

Behind Mergie was the body of Larrabel who was stabbed in the abdomen.

According to Redira, Werlie was out of the house at that time after he was asked by his wife to run an errand in nearby Sitio Patik, still in Barangay Tambulan.

When he returned to the house past 1 a.m., he was distraught to find his wife and two children dead and another child, still fighting for her life in a hospital. With Carine Asutilla, Inquirer Visayas