Police are looking for a dismissed security guard who is believed to have killed three persons and stolen P80,000 from a bank in Daanbantayan town, north Cebu on New Year’s Eve.
The victims were found dead with gunshot wounds in the First Agro-Industrial Rural Bank (Fair Bank) office around 6 a.m. of Dec. 31.
Police said a grudge against an employee may have prompted the shooting.
Killed were accounting clerk Jennelyn Migabon, Dean Deserte, who was the guard on duty and his live-in partner Cecilia Torres.
Virginia Migabon, Jennelyn’s mother told Cebu Daily News that her daughter had told her she couldn’t join the family’s media noche to usher in 2014 because she would be working overtime at the bank.
Witnesses told police that they saw security guard Berly Tudtud, 28, going to the bank around midnight last Dec. 31.
They said they heard a woman screaming “ayaw Ber!”[Ber don’t] and three blasts, which they thought were firecracker blasts.
Tudtud was recently fired as a security guard. December 31 was his last day of work. Julius Masbate, the bank manager, said Tudtud may have held a grudge against Migabon because the clerk was the one who reported to the management about unauthorized long distance phone calls made by Tudtud that resulted in increased telephone bills.
When police went to the guard’s house, his wife Cristine said the dismissed guard went home at around 8 p.m. on Dec 31, then left around 11 p.m., skipping the family’s New Year’s meal.
The guard returned around 4 a.m. and asked his wife to accompany him to his parent’s house in barangay Kayang, Bogo. He then told his wife that he was fired from his job and that he had to look for another job. Cristine then went home to barangay Dakit.
Fair Bank security guard Bernardo Veraque discovered the victims’ bodies when he reported for duty.
Chief Insp. Randy Naval, Daanbantayan police chief, said P80,000 cash was missing from bank. He said Tudtud also took his service firearm, a 12 gauge shotgun.
“It’s really sad for us to meet 2014 with this violence. We have not even recovered from Yolanda and this senseless thing happened,” said Daanbantayan Mayor Augusto Corro. /with reports from Fe Marie M. Dumaboc, Carine M. Asutilla and Chito O. Aragon