NBI wants psychiatric tests for Bulacan massacre suspect

Construction worker Carmelino Ibañez inside a police station in San Jose del Monte City, Bulacan province, after confessing to the massacre of members of the Carlos family and being addicted to drugs. Tests, however, showed he was negative for drug use. —INQUIRER PHOTO

CITY OF SAN JOSE DEL MONTE — The National Bureau of Investigation wants to subject the confessed killer of five members of a family here to psychiatric tests as part of its investigation of the massacre.

Carmelino Ibañez, 26, was not given any psychiatric test since his detention at the city jail here following the June 27 attack on the family of bank security guard, Dexter Carlos Sr., said Federico Criste, who is leading the investigation being conducted by the NBI Bulacan office.

That could be the reason Ibañez had been making contradictory statements each time he was interviewed by reporters, Criste said.

Carlos found his wife Estrella, mother-in-law Auring and three children dead from multiple stab wounds in their house at North Ridge Royale Subdivision when he returned from work in Makati City on June 27.

Criste said the NBI needed more time to collect evidence, saying the crime scene had not been preserved when agents started their investigation.

The police allowed relatives of the victims to occupy the house when they arrived here for the burial, Criste said, adding that almost all traces of forensic evidence that could have helped identify the attacker or attackers had been erased.

“Maybe the police assumed that the confession of one suspect was sufficient,” he said.

According to Criste, the NBI would need the results of the forensic examination being conducted at the Philippine National Police crime laboratory in Camp Crame. Criste said his team also recommended the examination of the mobile telephones of Estrella and Carlos, who was the first person at the crime scene.

Estrella’s telephone was taken by the San Jose del Monte police and was later turned over to the Central Luzon regional police in Camp Olivas in Pampanga province.

Criste said getting the record of telephone calls and other exchanges between Carlos and his wife was necessary to establish the facts of the case.

“Anyone being investigated is not automatically a suspect,” he said. “Everyone under investigation undergoes a process that will help enlighten us as to who could be the perpetrator. So we can also remove those who are innocent from our list of possible suspects,” he said in Filipino.

The San Jose del Monte police will also rely on the forensic test result, to convict Ibañez and clear Carlos, who remains on the police list of “persons of interest,” said Supt. Fitz Macariola, city police chief.

Carlos’ inclusion in the list was procedural. He was placed under the witness protection program of the Department of Justice.

But the police asked Carlos to undergo a lie detector test, so he could be cleared, Macariola said. —Carmela Reyes-Estrope