Suspect denies hand in Talisay chop-chop case

One of  three persons accused of killing two women in Talisay City in 2008  and dumping their  mutilated bodies in  garbage bags denied  involvement in the crime.

Richard Gudelosao testified in court yesterday.

He said  it was his friend Jojo Cellar, a taxi driver, who killed 24-year-old nurse Eva Mae Peligro and her cousin Gwendolyn Balasta, 26, at their home   in a private subdivsion in July 24, 2008.

Cellar was earlier sentenced to 20 to 40 years in prison after he admitted  killing the two women.

Police said the murders stemmed from bitter relations between Gudelosao and Peligro, the fiancée of his brother.

“I didn’t notice when the women were chopped,” Gudelosao told the court in Cebuano.

He said Cellar earlier drove a taxi to send the latter’s girlfriend to the pier in Cebu City.

However, Gudelosao was confronted by prosecution lawyer Julius Caesar Entice who said  Cellar doesn’t know how to drive a vehicle.

Asked why  he didn’t do anything when he learned that Cellar had killed the victims,  Gudelosao said he didn’t notice his friend  load into the taxi  13 plastic bags containing the  human remains of the victims.

The trial will resume on April 20.

Police  identified  Gudelosao as  the  mastermind in the killings.

Peligro’s  fiancée who is  Gudelosao’s brother  was in the United States at the time of the  killings.

Envy and family tensions were earlier reported as motives for the killings.

The women were strangled and their body parts were found in  several garbage bags dumped in various locations in the cities of  Talisay  and Naga, and Minglanilla town./REPORTER ADOR S. MAYOL