December 24, 2006
BANNER STORY/ Christmas eve massacre: 3 hotel employees killed ;l critical
By LIWAY M. YPARRAGUIRRE
with reports from CESAR S. RAMIREZ
PEACEFUL Dagupan City woke up today, eve of Christmas, to a grisly news of a massacre in the heart of the city at the Floren Hotel on Rizal st
It was the first mass murder case to occur within the city proper in decades.
Three of the hotel employees, including the woman cashier, Arcyll Molano, 23, were found dead with multiple stab wounds even as one or two of them were apparently clubbed to death, sometime at dawn today, police said.
Police Supt. Edgar Basbas, city police chief, identified the other fatalities as Jojo Calamagan,22, of General Santos City, an “all-around” roomboy and Michael Belo, 22, of Sta. Barbara, also a roomboy. Another hotel helper, Jurios Andres, was found still alive and rushed to the Region 1 Medical Center.
City police operatives made a quick major breakthrough in the gruesome killing.
Dagupan City Police Chief Edgar O. Basbas disclosed that their immediate coordination with the Sison police after the hotel’sduty security guard went missing , proved vital to the solution of the case.
Elements of the Sison police found and took custody of Victor M. Dalisay, a security guard of the Sampaguita Security and Investigation Agency in his residence at barangay Calanutian at about 11 a.m.today, Sunday, just a few hours after the crime was disacovered.
Basbas said he and his men together with policemen from the Lingayen PNP later arrested one of the room boys of the hotel in a far-flung barangay in Lingayen. Police requested that the suspect roomboy not be named yet.
The 20-year-old hotel helper was implicated by Dalisay as the one he allegedly saw bashing the head of one of the victims. It was not clear why the alleged assailant did not turn on the guard when he (guard) saw him killing the other hotel employees. hotel
Basbas said investigation is continuing as the statement of the security guard still has to be corroborated by evidence.
Basbas said they received the first report about the incident at around 4:30 a.m. Initial investigation showed some P10,000 in cash was missing.
The hotel guard, Basbas noted, was nowhere to be found.
Investigators learned that the hotel employees just had their Christmas party that ended at about 2:15 a.m.
The last hotel killing in the city was in the early 80s when the son of businesswoman Modesta Sabeniano, owner of the now government-foreclosed MacAdore International Palace on Galvan St., shot and killed Venancio Daroya, accountant and civic leader, just outside the hotel doors over a misunderstanding
