Chopped-up body of woman found in Quezon City

The dismembered torso and limbs of a 50-year-old woman were found on a Quezon City street early Saturday, hours after she was seen forcibly taken by unidentified men from her house in Rizal province the night before.

The head was yet to be found, but the victim was positively identified by a relative as Fely Bautista, who lived alone as a caretaker of a property in Barangay San Jose, Rodriguez town, reportedly owned by Wilfredo Sumulong Torres.

The town’s chief of police said a background check on Torres showed that he was the same man embroiled in major property disputes last year, wherein he managed to obtain allegedly spurious land titles.

The victim’s nephew Licencio Ferara recognized Bautista through her red nail polish, her ring and her dress, according to PO2 George Caculba, the officer handling the case in the Quezon City Police District.

Street sweepers discovered the body parts around 5 a.m. on Payatas Road in Barangay Payatas B, according to the QCPD. First to be found was the clothed torso, which was wrapped in a sheet of cellophane then stuffed in a rice sack.

The woman’s arms and legs were found five meters away, also stuffed in a sack.

Ferara told the QCPD that Bautista lived alone as a caretaker of a property owned by Torres.

Around 7:30 p.m. on Friday, he said, the victim’s neighbors saw Bautista being dragged out of her house by two men, who pushed her into a white van before driving off.

Ferara later learned from a jeepney driver that a woman’s chopped-up body parts were found in Payatas B.

The Rodriguez police were still gathering information on Bautista’s abduction and have yet to establish the motive for the killing.

The municipal police chief, Supt. Arthur Masungsong, said his men had learned about the incident only from the QCPD since the victim’s disappearance was not reported to the Rodriguez police.

According to Masungsong, a check on Torres’ background showed that there had been allegations against him for being a land-grabber.

In 2011 and 2012, the Inquirer reported on one such case against Torres involving a 23.7-hectare Quezon City property that pitted him against some 3,000 residents of K-Ville Subdivision and seven other middle class villages. With a report from Kristine Felisse Mangunay