Shoemaker clubbed dead

A village’s closed-circuit television (CCTV) camera captured how two men casually walked away from a man whom they beat up and stabbed to death yesterday morning in Sta. Cruz, Manila.

The CCTV camera in Barangay (village) 338 Zone 3 recorded the murder of 53-year-old shoemaker Mateo Buyron who was attacked as he was sleeping on the sidewalk at Mendoza corner Malabon Streets.

SPO3 Glenzor Vallejo of the Manila Police District homicide division told the Inquirer that two men armed with a hammer and a knife attacked the victim at 2:23 a.m. while he was sound asleep in his shoe stall which also served as his temporary shelter.

“The men suddenly appeared at the street corner and without any provocation hacked and stabbed the victim,” Vallejo said.

The investigator noted that while one man hit Buyron’s head with the hammer, the other stabbed the victim in the face with a knife.

“The two made sure that their target was really dead,” Vallejo said as he added that the two men also divested the victim of his personal belongings after the attack.

The CCTV footage showed the two men carrying Buyron’s things and walking away from the crime scene as if nothing happened. The suspects have yet to be identified as they were not residents in the area.

A barangay watchman discovered the victim’s body almost three hours after the murder. Scene of the Crime Operatives said Buyron’s body bore stab wounds in the face and deep cuts in the head.

The victim’s sister, Corazon, whose house was just nearby, told the police that on Sunday, her brother got into an altercation with his customers.

“He was exchanging heated words with two men and a woman. I think they were fighting over a shoe job they were asking my brother to do,” Corazon told investigators. Vallejo said they were looking into the disagreement as a possible motive for the killing.