6 suspects arrested in connection with QC killing spree

MANILA, Philippines—Six men have been arrested by the police in connection with the killing of five people in Fairview, Quezon City last Sunday.

The five people were killed in a shooting spree by two motorcycle-riding men.

In a television report on Tuesday, police said the suspects have been hiding in an abandoned residential area at Fairmont subdivision in Fairview, Quezon City.

On Sunday, two motorcycle-riding men shot at random five persons to death while traversing the 300-meter-long stretch along Commonwealth and Regalado avenues in Barangay (village) North Fairview between 1:30 a.m. and 2:30 a.m.‎

The names of the six male suspects, however, have not been divulged by authorities.

But officials said the two riding-in-tandem gunmen had criminal records prior to the incident.

“These are not even serial killers, they are mad killers. They are monsters,” a Quezon City police investigator angrily described the shooters who chose random targets, including a man and a woman on a motorcycle in an errand to buy medicine and a woman who was just waiting for a ride outside her subdivision.

QCPD-CIDU head Chief Inspector Rodelio Marcelo told the Philippine Daily Inquirer that what gave them the lead that the killings were the work of the same set of killers were the following:

*Proximity of the four incidents

*The short lapse of time between the killings

*The same weapon choice: a pistol

Killed were:

*Alodia Grace Go, 37, of Adrian Street, Fairmont Subdivision in Barangay (village) North Fairview

*Angelie Auguis, 35, of Imus in Cavite

*Gelmer Gabronino, 35, of Camarin, Caloocan City

* Rodelio dela Cruz, 34, of Barangay Baesa

*A still unidentified man, who was described to be between 25 and 30 years old, five-foot-five inches tall, slim, fair-skinned and clad in gray shirt worn over a pair of checkered short pants

According to Marcelo, the first victim was the motorcycle-riding Rodelio Dela Cruz who was repeatedly shot by one of two motorcycle-riders near the Power Grid Electrical Corporation on Commonwealth Avenue in Barangay North Fairview.

When found by a security guard in a nearby establishment, alerted to gunfire followed by the sound of a motorcycle speeding away, Dela Cruz was slumped on the pavement near his blue Rusi motorcycle (8995-XA), his head and body riddled with bullets.

Marcelo said that a few minutes later, Alodia Grace Go was shot in the neck and head also by motorcycle-riding men while she was standing at the corner of Regalado Avenue and Bronx Street just outside Fairmont Subdivision.

Some 50 meters away, Gelmer Gabronino and Angelie Auguis were on a motorcycle along the SM Fairview-bound lane of Regalado Avenue to buy medicine when they were shot by another pair of motorcycle riders in the head. Both victims died instantly, the QCPD-CIDU head said.

At around 2:30 a.m. a male scavenger was sifting through a garbage pile along Commonwealth Avenue in Barangay Fairview, over 200 meters away from the last incident, and collecting recyclable materials when one of two men on a motorcycle approached him and shot him with a .45 pistol in the left eye.

In almost all the crimes scenes, except for the last incident, bullet casings from a 9mm pistol were recovered by the Scene of the Crime Operatives. All the victims, according to QCPD-CIDU investigators were shot at close range by the spree killers.