AN UNIDENTIFIED serial killer was tagged as principal suspect in the murder of a 20-year-old girl on New Year's Day inside a motel in Consolacion, Cagayan de Oro City, police said.
The victim identified as a certain Maimai Laba-on checked in at “Cubicle Inn” in Consolacion together with unidentified partner in the morning of January 1, 2011.
Police are still verifying if Laba-on works as a commercial sex worker.
Elorde Fabrigas, the motel room boy, told investigators that the couple arrived on board a taxicab with plate number 949 and checked in past 3:30 a.m.
He said the couple checked in for a "short time" but the girl's partner went out ahead in the morning and asked not to "cut" the time since he will be back.
Fabrigas said he began to doubt when the man did not come back after lunch so he went to their assigned room at "Room 14" and went inside only to find out the victim lying dead and naked inside the comfort room.
Police investigators suspected that the killer was the same suspect in the murder of two commercial sex workers inside a motel in downtown Cagayan de Oro City last year.
Joann Galvez, of the city's Criminal Investigation and Detection Unit (CIDU), said the New Year's Day murder appeared to have similar patterns in the execution of the murder of two other women inside “King Williams Inn” along Capistrano-Cruz Taal streets.
"The victims were all suspected commercial sex workers and were killed inside motel rooms with signs of strangulation using bare hand or using other objects," Galvez added.
It was also learned that the killer took all of the victims' personal belongings in order to hide their identities, making it hard to identify them and get possible witnesses who must have known them, Galvez said.
However, she said, some witnesses have already supplied police with cartographic description of the suspect who is "tall and with big body build."
She said intelligence operatives are now digging and working on these cases, which could be an act of pervert killers on the loose. (Annabelle L. Ricalde/Loui Maliza)
