Massacre in Bulacan

Workers of a funeral parlor bring out a body from the Carlos family house in the City of San Jose del Monte in Bulacan province. Five family members, three of them children, were found dead in the house. —EDWIN BACASMAS

CITY OF SAN JOSE DEL MONTE — Dexter Carlos Sr., a security guard, arrived home on Tuesday morning at North Ridge Royal Subdivision here from the night shift in a bank in Makati City but was greeted with silence.

Carlos was calling out to family members to open their gate when he arrived in their house in Barangay Sto. Cristo at 8:45 a.m. No one answered.

After waiting for an hour and growing impatient, Carlos climbed the gate, peeped through a window, and was stunned when he saw his mother-in-law, Aurora, 58, lying on the floor without her lower garments.

He called the police, and proceeded to the back door where he found his wife, Estrella, lying naked on the floor with several stab wounds.

He also found his three children — 1-year-old Dexter Jr., Ella, 7, and Donny, 11 — locked inside a room, dead from stab wounds.

Supt. Fitz Macariola, city police chief, said Carlos told the police that he last saw his family alive at 5 p.m. on Monday.

Aurora was visiting from Davao City, Macariola said.

The police’s Scene of the Crime Operation here said the victims bore knife wounds, but forensic investigators had yet to recover the murder weapons.

Investigators said the family could have been attacked and killed between 3 a.m. and 4 a.m.

Macariola said investigators started interviewing neighbors, particularly those who visited the family members before their bodies were found.

The house stands in front of a staging area for tricycles, indicating that someone may have witnessed the killer or killers.

Estrella, police said, engaged in a small business by selling water from a faucet outside their house. Investigators would want to know who frequented the area.