Maria Pilar Cruz (Photo courtesy of the Cruz family)
One of the three suspects who stole an urn containing the ashes of Maria Pilar Cruz from her family’s Manila Memorial Park mausoleum in Parañaque last week, surrendered to authorities on the night of the woman’s 50th birthday.
Dioniso Layson, a 30-year-old former caretaker of Manila Memorial Park, submitted himself to the police and officials of Barangay BF Homes at 11:30 p.m. Friday, March 9, after his conscience acted up on him, according to PO3 Rolly Iglesias of the Parañaque police investigation unit.
In an interview with Inquirer, Layson maintained that he was not among the thieves who broke into the Cruz family mausoleum inside the private cemetery.
According to him, his two neighbors, Loui Alday and a certain Marvin, went to his house at Clinic Ville and told him to sell two metal urns for P1,900.
Clinic Ville is one of the communities around the cemetery. He said Alday was also a former caretaker of Manila Memorial but was “banned more than a year ago” for unknown reasons.
Alday and Marvin remain at large.
Layson was also stopped from working at the cemetery two weeks ago after the owner of the cemetery plot he was supposed to taking care of, complained of his negligence.
“When they gave me the urns, they were both already empty,” Layson recalled, noting that the two were “already light and had the same weight.”
The Cruz family learned from the Manila Memorial Park security that their mausoleum’s glass window was found open around 2 a.m. on March 4.
When the family inspected it, they discovered that the two urns were already missing. One of missing urns was gold-plated and contained the ashes of Maria Pilar while the other urn was empty. A screwdriver was left behind by the suspects.
Layson said he sold the urns at a junk shop in Barangay CAA in Las Piñas and immediately returned to the suspects. He said Alday and Marvin kept the P1,500 and gave him P400 as payment for helping sell the urns.
According to Layson, he only learned about the theft of the two urns when he saw a news report of it last Tuesday.
Layson said Alday and Marvin visited his house again on Friday afternoon. He then asked the two of the whereabouts of Maria Pilar’s ashes. He said the two men said nothing but instructed him instead to steal someone else’s ashes and make it appear that it was Maria Pilar’s.
“They even asked me to steal someone’s ashes and tell everyone that these were the ashes inside the urn they had stolen. They want me to become the fall guy,” Layson said.
“But I didn’t do it because my conscience bothers me. I pity the family,” he added.
Layson is now detained at the Parañaque Police station as criminal charges are being readied aganst him.
Layson apologized to the Cruz family, saying he didn’t know the urns were stolen. He said he would cooperate with the police in tracking down the two other suspects and even possibly, recovering Maria Pilar’s missing ashes.
Maria Pilar or “Pipie” was a 35-year-old New York-based bank analyst who was found dead after missing for 10 months in April 2003. She was later found stuffed in a suitcase which was buried under the concrete flooring in a garage of a house in Newark, New Jersey on Feb. 18, 2004.
READ: Urn with woman’s ashes stolen from cemetery in Parañaque
The Cruz family had earlier expressed hope that the stolen ashes of their kin would be returned to the family mausoleum in time for her 50th birthday on Friday, March 9. /muf