MANILA, Philippines—A 27-year-old man said goodbye to his live-in partner before he ended his life by hanging himself from a wooden beam inside their house in Sta. Mesa, Manila, on Monday evening.
“I love you very much. Always take care of yourself. Thank you for everything,” was Brian Dasco’s last text to his partner Evalyn Santiago, 25, who found his body.
In her statement to the police, Santiago said that she left the victim in their house on Old Sta. Mesa Street when she went to work at 8 a.m. on Monday.
When she came home at 8:30 p.m., she was greeted by the sight of his body hanging by the neck from a beam near the stairs inside their house.
The initial results of a police investigation showed that just before lunch on Monday, the victim started sending text messages to Santiago in which he bid her goodbye.
Worried about his welfare, Santiago told him that she planned to take the rest of the day off so that she could go home and be with him. However, her partner insisted that she remain at the office as he assured her that he was fine, she added. “But after that, he never returned any of my messages and calls,” she told authorities.
Based on Santiago’s account, her partner had been depressed for the past few days after he quit his job.