Laundry shop heist suspect surfaces

Following the arrest of two men accused of killing a laundry shop owner and wounding his wife and a household helper during a robbery, a third suspect implicated in the crime surfaced yesterday at the Manila police headquarters to clear his name.

Richard Oja, 24, of Barangay Del Rosario, Naga City, expressed surprise at being linked to the group who robbed, then killed his former employer Kelvin Chioa, 35, owner of the Bull’s Eye Laundry Shop at 1604 Yakal Street in Tondo.

Oja, accompanied by relatives and some neighbors traveled from Naga City to Manila and proceeded  to the Manila Police District (MPD) homicide section office to formally clear his name.

“I would never do that. He (Chioa) was a good man and his family treated me well,” Oja told the Inquirer. He claimed he never left Naga City for a month and could not have participated in the robbery, showing clearances issued by his barangay and the Naga City police to prove his allegation.

Apart from killing Chioa, the robbers also stabbed the victim’s 32-year-old wife Charlene and Maricel Librando, 25, the  nanny of their 4-year-old son. Both remain confined at a Manila hospital.

“I decided to obtain these clearances from the barangay and the police when I heard my name mentioned in the TV news reports about the laundry shop incident on Tuesday night. I was the only former employee of the Chioas named Richard,” he pointed out.

He explained that he could not have committed the crime because he left Manila on

Dec. 31 to celebrate the New Year at his hometown and has stayed there since then. “This is the only time I returned here (Manila),” Oja said, adding that he quit his job as a driver at the laundry shop because his common law wife, who is staying in his hometown, is pregnant with their first child and he wanted to start his family there.

To further prove his claim, he pointed out that on the eve of the crime, which happened on Jan. 31, he was at the birthday party of the daughter of his 47-year-old neighbor Domingo Avila.