Moved by daughter’s call, killer dad scraps escape plan

Danilo Rafael Sr. in police custody JAYMEE GAMIL

MANILA, Philippines—When Danilo Rafael Sr. was arrested on Tuesday in Cagayan province for killing his wife and son, he told the police he knew they were coming for him.

He said he had already mapped out an escape plan although he scrapped it at the last minute—all for the sake of his daughter who had called him up earlier to say that after having lost her mother and brother, she did not want to lose him, too.

In an interview at the Parañaque police station on Wednesday, the 55-year-old suspect admitted to killing his wife Fe, 54, and his 18-year-old son and namesake, Danilo Jr., in their house in Maragondon, Cavite, on Jan. 31 in a fit of jealousy.

The victims’ bodies were found two days later, stuffed inside the trunk of the family car he had left parked in front of his in-laws’ house on Timothy Street in Multinational Village, Barangay (village) Moonwalk, Parañaque City. The suspect and his family lived nearby in the same subdivision.

Danilo Sr., who is facing two counts of parricide and a complaint for illegal possession of firearms in the Department of Justice, said it was his 21-year-old daughter, Kim, who convinced him to stop running.

“I had heard the police were looking for me. I was already thinking of fleeing to another province,” he told reporters.

A phone call from his daughter, however, made him change his mind. “[She told me] I was all the family she had left. She didn’t want to see me die, too,” Danilo Sr. said as he buried his face in his hands and started to weep.

He recalled that he, his wife and son left Multinational Village on Jan. 29 for their other house in Maragondon, Cavite, where they were supposed to attend a family reunion. Kim, who was staying in Quezon City because it was closer to where she worked, was not with them.

But on Friday morning, he and his wife had a violent row over a text message she received on her cell phone.

“She became hysterical,” he said, adding that his wife hurled profanities and “hurtful words” at him, putting him in a black mood.

Danilo Sr. said he tried to cover his wife’s mouth but she started shouting for help, attracting the attention of their son who came out of his room to come to her aid.

He added that as they were struggling, he heard his son rummaging in the kitchen before the latter rushed toward him with a knife.

“He was even more hotheaded than me,” Danilo Sr. told the police.

At this point, he said he took out his gun and shot his teenage son. When his wife screamed more loudly, he said his “thoughts became more jumbled,” prompting him to shoot her, too.

The police found blood, bullet casings and slugs in the family’s house in Cavite following Danilo Sr.’s arrest.

An autopsy revealed that his son had been shot in the chest and head while his wife had a gunshot wound in the torso, according to Parañaque police chief Senior Supt. Ariel Andrade.

The suspect, however, said he did not recall shooting his son in the head although he admitted that he placed a pillow over his son’s face when he saw his body jerking.

Pillow used as silencer

Piecing the rest of the story together, police probers said Danilo Sr. used the pillow as a silencer when he shot his son in the head. He then placed the bodies in the trunk of their car which he drove back to Parañaque City on Friday evening.

Footage taken by a security camera inside the subdivision showed the suspect alighting from the vehicle and leaving Multinational Village on foot, carrying a backpack.

The police said Danilo Sr. found his way to Pasay City, where he boarded a bus to Tuguegarao, Cagayan. A concerned citizen, however, tipped off his whereabouts to the police.

He told reporters he was ready to be punished for what he did. “That’s why I’m here. I need to pay for what I have done. There must be justice for what I did to my wife and son.”

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