Monday, October 17, 2011

Dad slaughters three kids, wife, housekeeper in murder-suicide (Phillipines)

How sweet. Dad EMMANUEL PONCE spared the 14-year-old daughter....

What a dang control freak. Mad at Mom--whose youngest was 14--because she was in training as a runner. @$$hole.

And notice that we see the same excuses here that we see for the killer daddy in California who killed eight people in the salon. He was injured in an accident, see, and not quite right in the head. Bullsh**.

http://www.mb.com.ph/articles/337955/bloody-sunday-six-killed-home

Bloody Sunday: Six killed at homeBy MARS W. MOSQUEDA JR. and AARON B. RECUENO

October 16, 2011, 10:38pm

TALISAY CITY, Cebu — Peaceloving citizens of this city woke up to a bloody Sunday in their midst as a 55-year-old family man fatally shot his wife, two of their daughters, a son, and a house helper before turning the gun on himself in Palm View Village, Barangay Tabunok, here Senior Superintendent Patrocinio Comendador Jr., director of the Cebu Provincial Police Office (PPO), identified the suspect in the family massacre as Emmanuel Ponce, a former overseas Filipino worker (OFW).

Ponce’s victims were his wife Melinda, 53; daughters Elaine Grace, 26, and Erlin Bridge, 18; son Heether Joy, 25; and house helper Anastasia DeƱega, 30.

“Based on the investigation, the father arrived home very drunk. He then had an altercation with his wife,” said Comendador.

At the height of the marital spat, Ponce reportedly took out his 45-caliber pistol and shot his wife, said Comendador.

Ponce then continued on a shooting spree, aiming and firing at his children and the house helper, but sparing the life of his youngest daughter, Embrelaince Therjoy, 14, who was roused from sleep by the gunshots.

Their neighbor, Yolly Daan who is married to Cebu Provincial Board Member Julian Daan, said she spoke to Therjoy before police arrived.

“I was awakened by the gunshots,” Daan quoted Therjoy as telling her.

The girl told Daan that as she went down the stairs from her room, she first saw her brother kneeling and bloodied.

A few steps away, were her sisters – Grace, a nurse, and Emlin, a nursing student – sprawled on the floor in a pool of their own blood, added Daan as she recounted Therjoy’s account of what she saw.

Next Therjoy saw was her father who had a gun in hand, telling her to leave immediately.

“Go out and call the police. I will let you live. Everyone’s dead,” Daan quoted Therjoy as saying about her father’s last words to her.

“‘Go ahead. Go now,’ he (Ponce) prodded me as he saw me hesitant to leave,” Therjoy told Daan.

Senior Police Officer 1 Mike Espina, case investigator, said Therjoy was Ponce’s favorite child and that she obeyed her father’s instructions without knowing the fate of her mother or their house helper.

As soon as she had stepped out of the house, Therjoy heard another gunshot and believed it was her father killing himself, Espina added.

Later, police found Melinda’s body in the master’s bedroom. Seven bullet casings of the .45-caliber pistol used by Ponce were also found at the scene.

Comendador said four of the victims died on the spot while the two others succumbed to serious bullet wounds at a nearby hospital.

Puzzled at what drove Ponce to kill members of his family, probers interviewed Daan, a long-time neighbor and friend of Melinda, who worked as a branch manager of a universal bank.

Daan said Ponce, a former seaman, had changed after a nervous breakdown that followed a career-ending head injury he sustained in an accident aboard the ship he worked in 10 years ago.

Melinda had to follow Ponce in the United States where he had to undergo head surgery.

Since then, Melinda had been the breadwinner while Ponce had episodes of depression and a nervous breakdown, said Daan.

“At times, Emmanuel would hurt his wife during a heated argument,” said Daan, “But he never figured in any spat with neighbors.”

Ponce would get mad at Melinda whenever she came home late from work in Tabuan, Cebu City.

Daan said Ponce had no reason to get jealous because Melinda had picked up the sport of running when she turned 48 and was training for the Milo Marathon national finals set in December in Manila.

“Last weekend, she emerged female champion in the Summit 60K Ultra Marathon Challenge in Cebu,” Daan said.

She said Melinda also spoke of several instances when Ponce suddenly went out of his mind and turned violent.