Puzzle still unsolved in Camarines Sur town’s bloodiest day

POLICE close the portion of the Maharlika Highway in Pili, Camarines Sur, in front of the Zepeda house where five people were killed and four were injured in a hostage situation on New Year’s Eve. JUAN ESCANDOR JR/INQUIRER SOUTHERN LUZON

PILI, Camarines Sur—The hostage-taker who killed four persons, including three of his close relatives and himself in what could be this town’s bloodiest crime in years, came prepared for a gunfight, according to a former town official close to the hostage-taker’s family.

Alexis San Luis, former mayor and close relative of the Zepeda family, said Anthony Zepeda, 35, the hostage-taker, was a gun

enthusiast who always carried around a .45 cal. pistol.

When Anthony took hostage his own family and housemaids, he was wearing a bullet proof vest and carried a deadlier weapon aside from his .45 cal. pistol—a shotgun.

It turned out Anthony was also carrying a grenade, which was discovered as police tried to clear the Zepeda compound here where the killings took place.

On Dec. 30, when the hostage drama started to unfold, reports said Anthony had been firing indiscriminately inside the Zepeda home here, initially wounding two housemaids.

After eight hours, four bodies lay dead on the house’s second floor while Anthony’s body was found on the ground floor.

But details of what really drove Anthony to the rampage that killed his father, Expedito, 69, his elder brother Victor, his sister-in-law Sharmaine and housemaid Melly are still hazy.

Some, like San Luis, said it started with an altercation between Anthony and Expedito over what commonly shatters family bonds—finances.

Others, like Vice Mayor Rogelio Regondola, who headed a crisis committee that handled the hostage situation, said drugs could be involved.

San Luis, who said he became close to Expedito when he was still bank manager and Expedito was one of his biggest clients, said the quarrel between father and son most likely started on the night of Dec. 30 and spilled over in the morning of the next day.

Anthony, according to San Luis, had been handed his inheritance in the form of a rural bank that Expedito passed on to Anthony, who had been described as a favorite son.

The rural bank, however, ended up being sold by Anthony and the sale came at a very wrong time when the family was suffering from a business downturn, said San Luis.

The quarrel turned ugly and at one point, reports said Anthony was seen hitting Expedito with a chair during the altercation.

According to Vice Mayor Regondola, on the other hand, Expedito had confided to him the drug problems of Anthony. Expedito, the vice mayor said, had been seeking advice on a plan to commit Anthony to a drug rehabilitation facility.

Whatever drove Anthony to kill his own father, brother and sister-in-law and their housemaid may not be immediately known but this town will certainly not forget the bloodshed.

Senior Supt. Ramiro Bausa, police chief of Camarines Sur, said all the bodies, including that of Anthony, bore gunshot wounds in the head.

Attempts to end the hostage situation peacefully had been doomed from the start, according to former mayor San Luis.

San Luis, being a close friend of the Zepedas, said he tried to help by calling up Anthony’s phone but the person who answered said: “This is not Anthony.”

San Luis said he tried to call again, but the phone had been turned off already. He tried to call Expedito and Victor next, but there was no answer.

Amid the futility of negotiating with Anthony, authorities decided to give the go signal to launch an assault to rescue Anthony’s hostages after hearing gunshots coming from the Zepeda house.

The move came too late, though, as Anthony’s hostages and Anthony himself already lay dead inside the house.