Massacre suspect’s pulse had signs of drug use

Police Thursday said the houseboy who stabbed four people dead, including a month-old baby, in Valenzuela City before he turned the knife on himself early Wednesday appeared to be high on drugs.

This angle came up after the doctor who attended to Jeffrey Turla, 27, noted that although his brain waves had ceased, his pulse remained rapid and strong.

Dr. Manuel Pocsidio of Valenzuela City General Hospital reported that Turla’s pulse was really fast and “he was extraordinarily strong at that time” despite his self-inflicted stab wounds, according to Senior Police Officer 3 Jess Sagisi, deputy chief of the Valenzula police’s investigation unit.

Quoting the doctor, Sagisi said Turla’s rapid pulse may have been caused by the presence of drugs in his system.

However, he said this would have to be confirmed by drug tests.  Doctors tried to revive Turla for several hours before he succumbed to his injuries.

This was after he stabbed and killed his employer, Verna Castro, 36; her daughter Hanna, 15; son Samuel David, 6; and her month-old niece Phoebe de Leon in Castro’s house on St. Joseph Street at St. Jude Subdivision, Barangay Malinta, shortly after midnight on Wednesday.

Castro’s other son, 12-year-old Joshua, was also wounded but he managed to escape and ask for help. Joshua remains confined in a hospital after he sustained 20 stab wounds. Kristine Felisse Mangunay