Canadian’s body found in pit; farmer arrested

To neighbors, Canadian Darcy Hanz Reutenberg, 53, was a kind man who helped street children and provided jobs to poor families through a bakery he set up in Mandaue City.

But to 46-year-old farmer Rolando Aburot, Reutenberg was a man who turned violent when he got drunk.

Police yesterday arrested the farmer for shooting dead Reutenberg last June 26, and stealing the victim’s P50,000 cash and laptop computer.

“I was angry at him. I didn’t intend to do it. We were drunk and he acts different when he’s drunk,” Aburot told reporters.

The Canadian’s body was found buried in a pit used for charcoal making near the farmer’s house in the mountain barangay of Adlawon, Cebu City.

The farmer hid the victim’s remains there. Neighbors noticed he suddenly had a lot of cash to bet in cockfights and buy a carabao and several piglets.

The Canadian, a former missionary, was last seen leaving on a motorbike from his house in Mandaue City last June 26.

The farmer told police that during a drinking session, he asked Reutenberg, for payment for his services in building a rest house for the Canadian in the barangay.

Aburot said Reutenberg got angry and pulled out a gun. They argued. The farmer said he managed to point the gun and shoot Reutenberg in the head.

The farmer said he found P50,000 in the victim’s pocket. He didn’t tell his wife about the murder until a week later when she asked where he suddenly got the money to buy farm animals.

His wife sold the laptop for P8,000, which police recovered from a buyer downtown.

Aburot said he had known the foreigner for more than 15 years.

The Canadian would visit the Philippines once or twice a year and stay in an apartment in Pagsabungan, Mandaue City.

He said the Canadian had asked him to build a rest house in Adlawon since he looked forward to staying more often in the country.

The foreigner reportedly has two children in Canada and was divorced from his South Korean wife.

Adlawon barangay captain Elvis Narra said Reutenberg used to be a born again Christian minister and would feed and send to school some street children. He also had a bakery in Mandaue City where he’d hire poor families.

Aburot said he wanted to be paid because he had payment to make for a motorcycle that his son used as a habal-habal motorcycle-for-hire.

A day after the killing, Aburot used the money he stole to buy materials for a pigpen and buried Reutenberg in a nearby pit intended for charcocal making. He then bought pigs and a cow.

Reutenberg’s landlady, Evelyn Rebuscit, informed police about his disappearance.

When police arrived in Reutenberg’s rest house, neighbors pointed out a trail of blood that led to Aburot’s home about 300 meters away.

The farmer fled. Police dug up a pit beside the newly cemented pig pen and found Reutenberg’s decomposing remains.

Aburot was later picked up at a gasoline station in barangay Talamban.

He and his wife Marilyn Gerenia and their 17-year-old son were then arrested.

Autospy results showed that the Canadian was shot at close range. Investigators found the gun buried in the farmer’s kitchen.