Richard Sta. Ana is now facing parricide charges after police in Sta. Rosa, Laguna identified him as the mastermind of the brutal Mar 2 killing of his own wife, Pearl, and baby son, Denzel.
1 mastermind, 2 hired killers
The man whom Sta. Ana had hired to kill his wife and son — a trycycle driver named Ramoncito Galo — confessed to the crime. He also named the other man that Sta. Ana had hired as “alyas Bryan.”
Galo, is facing charges of murder, theft, and rape. Espera, on the other hand, is still at large and a hold departure order has been issued against him.
“A News5 source said Sta. Ana, who was reported missing since after his wife Pearl, 29, and their child Denzel, 1, were laid to rest on Mar 10, suspected his wife of cheating on him, and the boy of being sired by another man,” reports InterAksyon.com.
How the crime was planned
According to Gallo, when Sta. Ana approached him, he had introduced himself as, “Jeff.” He told Gallo that he need to have his sister-in-law killed because she had wronged his brother. Sta. Ana then paid Gallo and initial amount of PHP10,000. It was later revealed that the full amount of the fee was PHP60,000.
The report noted: “On February 29, Galo and “Bryan” surveyed the house and its surroundings. Then, on March 2, Sta. Ana himself gave them the fake IDs and job orders that used the name of a Globe Telecoms crew to gain access to the house. The men were supposed to gain entry to the house by pretending to respond to ‘signal problems.'”
Sta. Ana also gave Gallo and “Bryan” a Samsung mobile phone, with instructions to use it to take a video that would prove to him that the task had been done.
Once inside the house, Gallo seized and tied up Pearl. But, he said, it was “Bryan” who killed both Pearl and the boy Denzel.
Attempt to frame Globe Telecoms crew
After Pearl and Denzel were killed, Sta. Ana used Pearl’s phone to send a series of messages to her sibling. Among the messages contained the screenshot of the fake ID that used the stolen identity of the Globe employee.
As the report indicated, “In that message, which some probers thought seemed so contrived, Sta. Ana (posing as Pearl) had indicated that if anything happened to her, the man in the photo — the unsuspecting Globe Telecoms employee — would be a suspect.”
Investigators, as well as Pearl’s family members, were suspicious about the messages. This, along with other forensice evidence and CCTV footage, prompted them to take a closer look at Sta. Ana as a person of interest.
Senior Supt. Reynaldo Maclang, Sta. Rosa police chief, said in a radio interview that they wanted an “airtight” case and, hence, they probed all possible leads. It took nearly three weeks for them to declare the case as solved.
An ABS-CBNnews.com report, however, Public Attorney’s Office (PAO) chief Atty. Persida Rueda-Acosta the man is not in hiding, it’s just that he has yet to receive a subpoena or a warrant.
