Bizarre twist in the case of the man buried in cement

CAMP PACIANO RIZAL, Laguna, Philippines — It was a bizarre end to a police search for two prime suspects in last week’s killing of a 24-year-old man whose body was found buried in concrete inside his home in San Pedro town, this province.

Robert Edward Rosillas, a production operator of the pharmaceutical company Wyeth Philippines, had a bullet wound in the head when he was found in a mound of newly poured concrete inside his room on October 14.

The suspects—the victim’s sister, Katrina Rosillas, 25, and her policeman-boyfriend, Police Officer 1 Gamaliel dela Cruz, 25—were traced to a motel room in Baguio City on Saturday noon in what police said was a likely case of suicide.

Baguio police recovered a suicide note supposedly written by Dela Cruz, asking their families to bury their bodies together, said Superintendent Sergio Manacop, San Pedro police chief. The two drank rat poison and liquid drain cleaner, he said, quoting the police report on Sunday.

“We have circumstantial evidence pointing to the sister and the boyfriend. One was that she was the one who bought the sacks of cement used to bury her brother’s body,” Manacop said. The boyfriend was assigned to Taytay, Rizal.

Katrina denied involvement in the killing when she earlier talked to police. She said the cement was for Robert Edward’s garage.

The victim’s coworker found him in a heap of fresh cement inside the room.

“They poured a layer of cement on the floor, laid the body on top of it and covered it with another layer,” Manacop said on Monday. Each layer was 6-inches thick and it took police nearly three hours to break through them, he said.

Rosillas and Dela Cruz went missing after giving their statements to the investigators.

Police said sibling rivalry could be the most likely motive for the killing after learning that Robert Edward inherited their parents’ two-story house in San Pedro.

“According to their families, Katrina inherited P1 million but the money was already used up and [she] wanted the house for herself,” Manacop said.

He said Dela Cruz’s father surrendered his son’s gun after he and Katrina ran away.

“We still have to check if it was the same gun used to shoot the victim, although now that they (suspects) are dead, that doesn’t seem very important anymore,” he said.

With the discovery of their bodies, police authorities have declared the case closed.