BACOLOD CITY, Negros Occidental, Philippines – Police in the mining town of Hinobaan now have a possible suspect in the slay of a gay municipal employee who was was struck with an iron pipe, stabbed four times, and his stomach slit open by the killer in a gory murder that has shocked the usually sleepy place.
Mayor Ralph Reliquias of Hinoba-an, a town more than four hours south of here, told DNX police are looking initially at a person of interest, man with whom Darryl Cayao, 43, got into an altercation many months ago after that man allegedly damaged the eatery of Cayao.
Cayao, Reliquias added, could have been waylaid by the killer or killers who chased them from Negros Oriental where he and a friend went to in the morning of the day before his murder.
The mayor added Cayao was reportedly “chased” by some men in Negros Oriental but they managed to escape.
It is possible these same men, some of whom could be the killers.
Cayao was found bloodied around 1am uesterday on the side of the national higheay in Balugo, a community in Sangke, a village that borders Hinobaan with the Negros Oriental town of Basay.
Doctors declared him dead at a government hospital around two hours later.
Cayao, a first assigned to the emergency response unit of the town, is the second government employee killed in the province this month after Talisay City land tax employee Mike Lumawag was shot dead inside his home.
