Cops rule out robbery in slaying of DepEd Aklan official

By Ronilo L. Pamonag

Police investigating the death of Aklan schools divisions superintendent Arthur Juada have ruled out robbery as the possible motive as they continue their investigation into the brutal slaying.

Iloilo City Police Director, Senior Superintendent Norlito Bautista told The News Today during a phone interview over the weekend that the assailant may have been very angry with Juada based on the number of stab wounds inflicted on the 58-year-old official of the Department of Education.

“The assailant may have had an axe to grind against Juada,” Bautista said of the strongest possible motive that is now floating. “We have ruled out robbery as the motive.”

If it were robbery, Bautista explained, the stab wounds would not have been that numerous.

A roomboy of the Punta Villa Resort discovered the bloodied and naked body of Juada Wednesday morning when the former checked on him because his fellow participants in a seminar there had already checked out. There were 93 stab wounds in the different parts of Juada's body, 15 of these were fatal; while the rest were defense wounds, according to Bautista. Police have yet to recover the murder weapon.

Bautista, however, continued to refuse identifying the identities of their suspects. He maintained though that the assailant and the victim had known each other and had been together for quite a time. This accounts for the absence of signs of forced entry on the door of room 216 of Punta Villa resort, where Juada was staying.

The CIDG invited over the weekend four persons to shed light on the killing.

CIDG Regional Director Senior Superintendent Jorge Corpuz said the four, whose names are being withheld, are ‘friends of Juada' and are from Iloilo City.

Bautista did not set a time frame, though, for the probers to finish the investigation.

“I just want them to exert everything so that we can arrest the perpetrators and give justice to Dr. Juada and his family,” he remarked.

He said they have gathered a lot of information and are now in the process of gathering these so that they could come up with a very strong case against the killer.