‘Trip lang’: Teenager hacks grandma, eats her heart

BACOLOD CITY, Philippines — A 19-year-old teenager hacked his 85-year-old grandmother and ate her heart inside her house in a mountain village in Kabankalan City, Negros Occidental, on Tuesday.

“Trip lang” was the response of Ruben Fernandez Jalaman when asked by the police why he killed his grandmother about 2 a.m. in her house at Purok Kabukiran, Barangay Tapi, Kabankalan, about 90 kilometers south of here.

Superintendent German Garbosa, Kabankalan  police chief, said Ruben admitted to the police eating raw the entire heart of his grandmother, Olivia Rapel Jalaman.

Garbosa said Ruben would be subjected to psychiatric tests to determine his mental health.

Garbosa said village watchmen of Tapi went to the house of Olivia early morning of Tuesday after neighbors reported that they heard the old woman screamed for help.

When the village watchmen went to Olivia’s house, they found the elderly lifeless, her chest ripped open and her heart gone.

Ruben was in the house when the watchmen arrived and told them that he killed his grandmother and ate her heart.

Asked why, Ruben replied that it was simply a “trip.”

The watchmen arrested Ruben and called the Kabankalan police for assistance.

The policemen arrived and brought Ruben to the police station for questioning.

Garbosa said he repeatedly asked the suspect why he killed his own grandmother but the young man gave the same answer – “trip ya lang (It was a trip).”

Ruben told Garbosa that he ate the heart raw and consumed it all.

Garbosa said that neighbors of the victim didn’t hear any noise that may indicate that Olivia and Ruben were quarreling prior to the killing.

He said the neighbors were just jolted by the screams for help of the old woman at 2 a.m. that prompted them to call the assistance of the watchmen.

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