Family confirms identity of head in icebox

LEGAZPI CITY—The head found in an icebox in Camarines Sur province on Sunday night belongs to Flor Rapsing, a family driver who was beheaded in Masbate City on Saturday noon, according to the victim’s family.

Supt. Cerilo Trilles Jr., Masbate City police chief, said Rapsing’s brother, whom he did not name, positively identified the head in the box retrieved along the Andaya highway in Barangay (village) Kabutagan in Lupi town, Camarines Sur.

Rapsing, 39, was beheaded by still unknown men in an ambush at the National Road of Purok 2, Barangay Usab, Masbate City, on Saturday noon.

His employers, Supleto brothers Samson, 50, and Jeremiah, 47, were also killed in the attack, which investigators said could be connected to a multiple murder and robbery case in Aroroy town, also in Masbate, on Easter Sunday.

Gold mill owner Jesus Amaro, 64, his son Gilbert, 36, and their family driver, Ricky Almodiel, were killed in Aroroy.

Police sent a photo of a man’s head by e-mail to Rapsing’s brother on Monday. The head has the same haircut and earring on the left ear as described by the family, Trilles said in a phone interview on Tuesday.

Trilles said the family decided to claim the severed head from a funeral parlor in Sipocot town, Camarines Sur, where it was brought by the police for temporary safekeeping. They left Masbate province early on Tuesday and traveled to Camarines Sur via Pilar port in Sorsogon province.

Trilles said the police were exploring leads to the identities of the killers. He refused to divulge other details on the investigation.