Police name stray bullet case suspect

Authorities are preparing to charge with homicide the owner of the house in Las Piñas City where an 11-year-old girl was killed after she was hit by a stray bullet on New Year’s Eve.

Senior Supt. Jemar Modequillo, Las Piñas police chief, said that the filing of the case against Juni Robia, possibly within the week, was based on circumstantial evidence. The victim, Darlene Gutierrez, was watching a fireworks display with Robia’s children at the second floor of the suspect’s house at Block 5, St. Vincent, Mapayapa Village, when she suddenly collapsed.

Initially, her parents and playmates thought she just momentarily lost her balance but a checkup at the Las Piñas District Hospital showed that she had  been hit in the left temple by a bullet from a .40-cal. pistol.

According to Modequillo, the trajectory of the bullet—a straight horizontal line—

showed that it was fired by someone inside the house.

This was also confirmed by their reenactment of the incident plus the fact that the surrounding houses in the area were not as tall as the suspect’s.

“If the bullet had come from outside [the house], the trajectory should not have been straight. There should have been a [steep] angle,” Chief Insp. Rey Viloria, the city police’s information officer, said in a phone interview Tuesday.

Robia, who underwent a paraffin test after the incident, was also found positive for gunpowder.

At the same time, Viloria cited what he said were Robia’s statements which contradicted those of his wife.

Robia’s wife had told them that he was outside the house when the incident happened but when he himself was asked, Robia said he was home and asleep.

“Also, in the wife’s statement, [she said] her husband was not [inside] their house, but when [interviewed] by a television network, she said he was there,” Viloria said.

He noted that the victim’s playmates had also told the police that Robia was at home when the incident occurred.