BY JOEL CALAMBA ESCOL, Managing Editor
CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY – A forty-four-year-old employee of the Bureau of Customs (BoC), based at Mindanao International Container Terminal (MICT) Tagoloan town, was found dead last night by responding police officers at her rented apartment at Gracia Compound, Zone 5, Tin-ao in Barangay Agusan, this city.
Lead investigator Major Peter Tajor, Puerto Police Station, identified the dead body of the customs employee as Verna Mae Gomilao, 44 and a native of Ozamiz City.
Major Tajor said initial investigation revealed that the victim rented an apartment in Barangay Agusan as she works at the Bureau of Customs based at Mindanao International Container Terminal (MICT) in Tagoloan town, Misamis Oriental.
The victim’s body was bathed in blood when responding police investigators, led by Major Tajor, went to her apartment, after their office received information of the said killing.
The victim, the police said, sustained a wound in her head and she was possibly hit by a hard object which could have led to severe bleeding causing her untimely demise.
Police investigators learned from the neighbors that the former live-in partner of the victim visited Gomilao before the incident happened.
Witnesses reported to the police they heard commotion inside the rented apartment but they did not mind them, thinking those were just normal quarrels of a couple.
“Nia nasad ka dire aron magsinamok,” were the only words the neighbors heard from the victim when she opened the door and let the former boyfriend get inside the house.
The neighbors reported that the alleged suspect visited the victim last Wednesday. But the neighbors observed that the following day, the victim did not come out from her room, which led to the suspicion that something might have happened to her.
On Thursday, the alleged suspect, identified as a certain Sommerson Sambaan, 44, surrendered to police authorities and admitted he hurt the victim after knowing she would no longer patch up their misunderstanding and instead asked him to go on separate ways and cut off their relationship.
According to the police, jealousy is the main motive of the killing of the government employee by his live-in partner known by her neighbors as alias Toting.
The suspect is now languishing at the police’s mini-cell and awaiting the filing of formal charges of homicide, the police authorities said.
