4 farm workers arrested for killing of American, wife in Negros

BACOLOD CITY—Hours after the bodies of an American and his wife were found inside a 20-foot well near their house in Murcia, Negros Occidential province, police arrested four farm workers who were the last persons seen leaving the place and failed to return the next day.

They just had a spending binge, police said.

The bodies of Kevin Fleischauer, 58, and his wife Lolly Mangilaya Fleischauer, 60, who were into organic farming, were retrieved by policemen from the well after their friends started to worry that they had not seen them for about two weeks.

A witness told the police that the four workers of the couple in their organic farm were seen leaving the compound about 8 p.m. on Aug. 4. They did not show up for work the next day and instead went home to Sagay City, also in Negros Occidental, raising the suspicion of authorities.

Police tracked the suspects—Randy Tugbong Nunez, 25; Raymart Almario Medel; a 17-year-old and Randy Perez—in their homes in Sagay, where they reportedly spent the money they took from the Fleischauers. They had told their relatives that the American left the country and gave them money, police said.

Nunez, Medel and the teenager were arrested in their homes during simultaneous operations about 9 p.m. on Monday at Sitio Dahlia, Barangay Puey in Sagay, said Insp. Lawrence Gerald Bathan, Murcia police chief. Perez was arrested in his relative’s house in Barangay Bato, also in Sagay, about 9:25 a.m. on Tuesday.

Recovered from them were P15,000 in cash, 12 $20 bills, four $50 bills, two $10 bills and a $1 bill, assorted pieces of jewelry, two laptop computers, five cellular phones, an MP3 player, a 9mm Parabellum pistol with one magazine and seven live bullets, wallet, cell phone charger and electric grinder.

Charges of robbery with double homicide were filed on Tuesday against the four at the provincial prosecutor’s office in Bacolod City.

Police said the 17-year-old and Medel admitted that they hit the victims with a piece of wood on Aug. 4 inside their house in Villa Emmanuel, Barangay Blumentritt, Murcia.

The woman was still moving when they dumped her into the well. Her husband, who was unconscious, was to be thrown next.

On Aug. 16, a group of Open Door Baptist Church members led by Pastor Nelson Cunanap went to the couple’s house in Murcia to check on them. They found the house in disarray, the main door was damaged, and the door of the main bedroom open.

The Fleischauers’ Mitsubishi Adventure van was parked inside the compound but they could not find the couple, so they decided to call the police.