Controversial former prosecutor shot dead in Cebu

A controversial former prosecutor from Cebu City has died after she was shot dead by an unidentified gunman on a motorcycle on her way home late last night.

Former prosecutor Mary Ann Castro, was ambushed on Escario St. at around 10pm last night, ABS-CBN News reported. She was reportedly driving a yellow Nissan Juke and was on her way home to the nearby city of Talisay at the time, the Fuente Police Station told the TV station.

A witness said that he heard at least five gunshots and that the suspect fled the scene with his face covered, ABS-CBN News reported.

Castro sustained one gunshot wound on her neck; the bullet went through her right jaw, according to Sun Star. 

According to The Philippine Daily Inquirer‘s Cebu Daily News, Castro’s car ended up swerving to the opposite lane and hitting iron sheets installed in a construction site across the street.

Castro appeared to have already been dead when a medical team arrived at the scene of the crime, Inquirer wrote.

Cebu City Police Office chief Senior Superintendent Royina Garma told Cebu Daily News that she will form and head a Special Investigation Task Group to investigate the killing and figure out the suspect’s motive. Before that’s established, the Abellana Police Station will be in charge.

Police are considering various motives, including ones related to Castro’s controversial past.

According to Sun Star, Castro quit her 18-year stint as an assistant prosecutor at the Office of the Cebu City Prosecutor in April 2017 after having been suspended twice.

The first suspension, which lasted six months and 1 day, was in 2015 when she was found to have used her position to ask police for help about a defective vehicle her brother bought in 2001.

She was suspended again for six months the year after for filing different petitions for marriage annulment in two trial courts in Cebu in 2000, Sun Star reported.

She was also reportedly in a relationship with police officer Adonis Dumpit who was linked to the illegal drug trade and died in a buy-bust operation in June last year.