Text messages signaled murder victim’s death

BEFORE she died, murder victim Jenelyn Premacio sent a text message to her mother talking about her affair with another man.

“Ma, I miss you, I wanted to live long, I can’t avoid to go with him,” Jenelyn’s mother Gina recalled, saying that she deleted the message from her phone since she didn’t understand it.

The 19-year-old Jenelyn reportedly went out with 17-year-old Leonard “Junard” Balario.

A threatening text message sent by a previous partner was found in her phone.

“Pangitaan tikag paagi babayhana ka nga magkita mo ni Satanas, maoy hinungdan nga dako kaayo ka og nadispalko nga kwarta” (I’ll find a way for you and Satan to meet. You’re the reason I lost so much money),” the message read.

Jenelyn and Junard were found dead in a grassy vacant lot in barangay Buagsong, Cordova, Cebu at past 3 p.m. last Sunday.

Police said Junard and Jenelyn were last seen in a disco in one barangay last Saturday.

Residents of Buagsong named Anecito Yagong and Nicasio Aureo were letting their goats graze the area when they spotted the victims who were 10 meters apart from each other.

Junard, a resident of barangay Poblacion in Cordova town had hack wounds in his neck and a gunshot wound in his left leg, while Jenelyn had contusions on the back of her legs.

Her feet were also hogtied with a nylon rope. Police said Balario’s genitals were exposed.

Neighbors said gunshots were heard from the scene Sunday dawn.

Gina said Jenelyn, a resident of barangay Catarman in Liloan town, had two sons aged two and one year old from a previous relationship.

She said her daughter had another relationship with a suspected drug pusher.

She admitted that her daughter sniffed shabu with friends.

Erlinda Balario, Junard’s sister, said she managed to read the threatening text message sent to Jenelyn.

Cordova police said they are looking into a love triangle and illegal drugs as angles in the murder case.

They said Jenelyn’s previous partner had a pending arrest warrant for murder in the 1990s.

They went to his house but he wasn’t home. His name is withheld until his side is heard on the case.

The remains of Junard and Jenelyn were brought to St. Francis Funeral Homes for autopsy. Correspondent Norman V. Mendoza with STC intern Tweeny Malinao

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