CAMP MIGUEL MALVAR, Batangas City – Police have arrested a subdivision security guard in the rape-murder of a 21-year-old La Salle college student whose body was found inside her residence in Miracle Heights Subdivision in Barangay Antipolo del Norte, Lipa City.
Police Col. Edwin Quilates, provincial police director, presented to the media yesterday the 24-year-old suspect, Jorge Arobog Benedicto, who was arrested in Victoria, Oriental Mindoro Tuesday afternoon.
Benedicto is accused of raping and killing Fidex Therese Dimaculangan Maranan whose body was found naked and covered with a blanket in her bedroom by her cousin Romulo Maranan on May 17.
Investigators believe Maranan had been dead for three days when her body was found.
Quilates said among the persons of interests, only Benedicto did not appear and went missing. He did not report for work on May 15.
Benedicto was seen on the subdivision’s closed circuit television footage while outside the guard’s barracks walking towards the street where victim’s residence is located at around 11:20 p.m. on May 15. At 1:15 a.m., he was seen on the footage going back to their barracks by climbing over the steel fence of the subdivision.
Benedicto’s live-in partner, Angelica Ponce Roco, helped police locate the suspect who left his apartment in Barangay Sabang, Lipa City on May 17 and went to his mother’s place in Mindoro.
After his arrest, Benedicto narrated what happened between him and Maranan to one of the inmates, according to Quilates.
“Kinuwento niya kung anong nangyari sa isang inmate, pumasok siya dun sa bahay kasi bukas ang pintuan sa likod and he was immediately seen by the victim so inuntog niya, afterwards he raped the victim then nung nagkakamalay na dun na niya sinaksak sa leeg,” Quilates said, quoting the inmate.
Quilates added that Benedicto’s fellow security guard, Marvin Opeña, revealed that they had a drinking session on the night of May 15 inside their barracks.
Opeña said that he was even invited by the suspect to go to the victim’s house which he flatly refused.
The provincial director said that DNA test on suspect’s specimen positively matched with the blood stains and other specimen taken from the crime scene.
Maranan, an orphan, was a graduating student at De La Salle Lipa. She was the niece of Monsignor Ruben Dimaculangan, a parish priest at St. Therese Parish in Talisay, Lipa City. (Lyka Manalo)
