CAMP GEN. ALEJO SANTOS, Bulacan–A 38 year old alleged battered woman and three others were arrested as the alleged mastermind and cohorts in the murder of her husband in San Miguel town on Saturday.
Bulacan Police Director Col. Charlie Cabradilla identified the arrested as Maricel Beltran, Benjie Garcia, Romie De Guzman and Anthony Velasquez while the victim as Ryan Beltran, 39, a fishpond operator from Barangay Maligaya in the said town.
The four suspects were arrested by San Miguel and San Ildefonso police on Sunday in different hot pursuit operations in San Miguel town and in adjacent Doña Remedios Trinidad (DRT) town.
San Miguel police chief Col. Jayson San Pedro said Beltran was killed while inside the couple’s room in their rest house in Maligaya at around 11 p.m. on Saturday. He was rushed to a hospital in nearby Gapan, Nueva Ecija but was declared dead on arrival.
Beltran claimed that while they were sleeping, she woke up and went to the comfort room outside their room. She returned to their room after she heard a gun shot coming from that place. She then saw the body of her husband covered with his own blood.
San Pedro said that Beltran and Velasquez were only witnesses at first but during the course of their investigation, the two admitted being mastermind and cohorts in the killing and later divulged the names and whereabouts of the two other suspects.
The police were also surprised, the wife and Velasquez, the forster son of the victim were not hurt or killed and there were no any signs of force entry and or robbery.
San Pedro said Beltran and Velasquez later made extra judicial confession claiming they were behind the killing.
Accordingly, Beltran is a battered wife and she contracted Garcia who is the gun man to kill her husband for P70,000 payment. De Guzman serves as a look out.
Upon investigation, the police found messages in Beltran’s cellphone of her conversation with Garcia. “Punta na kayo, tulog na asawa ko,” the text message reads.
The mastermind had paid an initial P5,000. Garcia was trying to collect the P65,000 balance from her as seen in the succeeding text messages before he was arrested.
