The claim of a second suspect in the celebrated Christine Lee Silawan murder in Cebu appears, according to crime observers, to have muddled the one-month-old case.
Police Regional Office 7 chief Debold Sinas told reporters in Cebu the suspect, a 43-year-old father of five, admitted killing the 16-year-old victim on March 10 in Barangay Bankal in Lapu- Lapu City because she refused to have sex with her.
There was no immediately available comment from the suspect’s family, and neither from the victim’s.
Sinas had no other details pending coordination with the National Bureau of Investigation Region 7 Office.
NBI 7 had filed murder charge against Silawan’s ex-boyfriend, arrested on March 16, following a DNA result which showed the bloodstain on the shoe of the former boyfriend matched the specimen taken from Silawan’s parents.
The name of the second suspect has been withheld by prosecutors, pending filing of a charge against him.
Police quoted the suspect as saying in Bisaya: “I was not pressured to confess. Since my arrest, I have been bothered by what I did not only to Christine but also to the boy who was arrested by the NBI. He did not commit the crime. I’ve been evil.”
But he was detained after the police recovered a caliber 45 pistol from him during a buy-bust in his house in Bankal on Tuesday, April 9.
During the interrogation following his arrest, the police said that was the time he confessed to killing Silawan on March 10.
The suspect was reported to have guided personnel of the Lapu-Lapu City Police Office led by Police Colonel Limuel Obon at the crime scene in Sitio Mahayahay in Barangay Bankal Wednesday morning to show how he carried out the crime.
