Predawn squabble leaves 2 dead

Two women were found dead Sunday morning inside a house in Quezon City, and it wasn’t until the discovery of the bodies that their neighbor realized that she should have paid closer attention when one of the victims was heard hours before fighting with her live-in partner.

The victims were identified as 41-year-old Susan Palermo, a resident of 79 Zuzuarregui St. in Barangay Old Balara, and her guest Analiza May Elladora, 29.

SPO1 Cristituto Zaldarriaga of the Quezon City Police District’s Criminal Investigation and Detection Unit said that Palermo and Elladora each sustained at least three stab wounds in different parts of their bodies. Both died on the spot.

Zaldarriaga said the victims were found around 6 a.m. Sunday by Fe Rabago who noticed that someone had left open the door of Palermo’s shanty.

According to the case investigator, Rabago decided to check on her neighbor hours after she heard a violent fight taking place inside the shanty and assumed that it was Palermo and her live-in partner, Alex Mingoria, having an argument as usual.

Rabago, however, stumbled onto Elladora lying on her stomach near the door. She then discovered Palermo’s body nearby and immediately reported her find to authorities.

“When I heard the screaming, the shouting and things being thrown, I thought they (Palermo and her live-in partner) were fighting again so I did not mind them. I would always hear them fighting at night usually whenever he (Mingoria) would come home drunk. He was always jealous of the people around her,” Rabago told the Inquirer.

She said that at 7 p.m. on Saturday, she heard the couple arguing. She later saw Elladora knocking on the door of the couple’s house and the squabble stopped.

At 2 a.m. Sunday, however, Rabago was roused by the noise coming from Palermo’s shanty.

“I did not mind them because I was too scared to try to help. I did not want to meddle. None of us in the neighborhood wanted to meddle,” she said.

Policemen have started to search for Palermo’s live-in partner who has since disappeared. Jeannette I. Andrade