Boy killed by mom’s lover

Mandaue police called it a “crime of passion.”

The death of 7-year-old Gabriel was a horrific blow to his mother, Christine Morales, who had been looking for him since Saturday.

The boy’s body turned up yesterday covered with soil and crushed hollow blocks inside the house of her estranged lover in sitio Riverside B.  along a creek in barangay  Subangdaku Mandaue City.

Th grade 2 pupil was wrapped in a yellow blanket with his mouth and feet bound with packing tape.

Police arrested the mother’s ex-lover, Mario Villarias Abecia, 42, after an entrapment operation in a motel last Monday.

Abecia, who works as a company driver,  admitted taking the boy from his home in barangay Umapad in a bid to force the mother to reconcile with him after the couple split up a month ago.

The driver’s neighbor, Arsenio “Jun-Jun Ursal,” 34 was also arrested as a conspirator.

A police autopsy showed that 7-year-old Gabriel died of asphyxia by suffocation.

Abecio admitted stuffing a towel in the boy’s mouth and sealing it with tape, then binding his feet. He lay the boy on top of the bed.

“Ako tong gibuhat kay nahadlok ko matagak siya sa sapa ug para dili siya muhilak (I did it because I thought he might run off and fall in the creek, and so that he won’t cry out),” he added.

Then Abecia went out to look for Christine, hoping to convince her to return to him.

The driver said that when he returned to the house, he found the child lifeless on the bed.

He said he panicked and decided to hide the body from neighbors by covering it with soil, the remnants of silt from a recent flood in the creek.

Gabriel, a pupil in the Opao Elementary School, was found curled around the toilet bowl. His body was wrapped in a blanket and a malong.

Neighbors along the easement zone of the Subangdaku Creek noticed a stench and flies coming from the house. A barangay tanod entered to check the source of the smell and found the boy’s corpse.

Gabriel was the youngest of three siblings.

He was reported missing last Saturday past 7 p.m.

Abecia last night said he got jealous after seeing his woman with another man.

Last Saturday at 6 p.m., Abecia and his neighbor Ursal went to the house in sitio Lemonsito to pull out his belongings. He claimed that Gabriel insisted on going with him.

Not so, according to the mother.

Christine said she received text messages from Abecia threatening to kill the boy.

The mother went to the Opao police station headed by Insp. Wilson Abot for help.

An entrapment was planned in Hidden Lodge, a motel in  barangay Guizo, where a meeting was set to draw out Abecia.

Police arrested him Monday afternoon when he showed up.  He was detained but misled the police about the child’s whereabouts. The driver told Insp. Abot that the boy was “sold” in Dumaguete City.

Senior Supt. Noel Gillamac, Mandaue police chief, said charges of kidnapping and murder will be filed against Abecia  along with his neighbor Ursal. With a report by Jhunnex Napallacan