Killer QC teen: ‘I did something to lola’

In a case covered by the country’s recently amended law on the juvenile justice system, a 17-year-old boy was held by authorities in Quezon City for killing his own grandmother Friday night.

“I did something to lola,” the young man told a relative, his voice trembling in confession, hours after the incident in Barangay Batasan Hills.

Police said the teenager apparently went berserk after getting another scolding from the victim, 68-year-old Estelita Novilla, who died after he bashed her head with flower vases.

The teenager was already in the custody of social workers at press time Saturday. Under the amended 2006 Juvenile Justice and Welfare Act, which President Aquino signed into law in October last year, an offender aged more than 15 years and below 18 years is exempt from criminal liability but will be subjected to “an intervention program” of the Department of Social Welfare and Development.

PO3 Jamie de Jesus, the case investigator, said the out-of-school youth had been left in the care of Novilla, his paternal grandmother, after his parents separated and went on to raise different families.

Around 6 p.m. Friday, the teenager was playing computer games at an Internet shop in the neighborhood when an angry Novilla came for him and gave him another scolding, which went on even after they already reached home.

De Jesus said the young man apparently got fed up and, in his rage, smashed two ceramic flower vases on his grandmother’s head.

The teenager managed to “clean up” the crime scene before leaving the house to see Editha Novilla, the victim’s daughter, who lived in the Pantranco area.

In a statement to the police, Editha said she was about to go to sleep around 10 p.m. Friday when the teenager arrived.

Trembling, he then told Editha that he had “done something to lola,” after which they both went to the victim’s house.

When found by the police, the woman’s body also bore cuts on the arms, neck and chest, possibly a sign that she tried to fight back. The teenager also had cuts on his hands from broken shards.

Pieces of the vases used in the killing were later found in a trash can outside the grandmother’s house, De Jesus said.