Tarlac City—A 41-year-old Korean with standing double murder and illegal drugs cases in Pampanga and Tarlac “mysteriously” vanished into thin air from his provincial jail guard escorts minutes after attending to a call of nature at Julia’s Kambingan situated along MacArthur Highway at Barangay San Rafael here Wednesday.
This develops as Pampanga Gov. Dennis Pineda ordered a massive manhunt against Park Wang Yeol as he coordinated with the Bureau of Immigration to include the Korean in the hold order departure list.
Police Lt. Colonel Joel Mendoza, Tarlac City police chief, said Yeol, of Seoul, South Korea, was nowhere to be found inside the comfort room when checked by provincial jail guards led by PG1 Randy Sibug, Danilo Gonzales, Carlo Layag, Clarito Mendoza and Danilo Aragon, all of Pampanga Provincial Jail past 10 a.m.
Mendoza said Yeol and his escorts were on their way back to Pampanga after the scheduled arraignment of illegal drugs offense at Yarlac City Regional Trial Court branch 64, was postponed for unavailability of the government prosecutor.
The group, Mendoza said decided to have a brief stop over at the restaurant for refreshment. He said the Korean asked to be left inside the comfort room for personal neccessities which the escorts nodded.
Yeol’s girlfriend Elvie Fider, 32, sneaked her cellular phone ino the pocket of her boyfriend before heading to the comfort room.
“Yeol locked himself inside the CR that possibly gave him the opportunity to make a good escape through a man-size ventilation hole of the comfort rooms ceiling then exited at the parking lot where a car was park and picked him up,” said Mendoza over the phone.
Sensing something unusual, the jail guards rushed-up to the comfort room but found no body inside. Instead, they brought with them Yeol’s girlfriend and subjected for investigation at the Pampanga provincial jail.
The incident happened past 10 p.m., but the jail guards reported the incident after more than three hours, said Mendoza that prompted him to deploy policemen in every corner of the city and launched a citywide manhunt.
“I dispatched plainclothes policemen to the residence of Yeol’s girlfriend at Barangay Balete, and stayed up 12 midnight hoping that the Korean will show up there but failed,” said Mendoza, while describing the escape as a well-planned and precised execution.
Yeol is considered a high-risk detainee due to his alleged involvement in double murder and illegal possession of firearms cases in Pampanga sometime in 2016, according to highly placed sources.
Pineda placed the five jail guards on preventive suspension pending results of the investigation. He also ordered the filing of criminal case for infidelity of prisoners on custody and administrative charges against them.
