Slain bank teller’s ex-hubby charged with murder, parricide

The sister of slain bank teller Tania Camille Dee on Monday filed with the Department of Justice (DOJ) murder and parricide charges against the victim's estranged husband.

In a complaint referred to the DOJ by the Pampanga police's Criminal Investigation Detection Group, Rose Mary Ann Dee accused Fidel Sheildon Arcenas of violation of Article 246 of the Revised Penal Code (parricide) and Article 248, in relation to Par. (2) Article 19 of the RPC (murder).

 

Charged with Arcenas was his girlfriend Ma. Angela Francesca Dychioco, as well as several unidentified individuals or "John Does and Jane Doe."

 

Dee was found dead at the backyard of the house of Dychioco's mother, Regina, in Barangay Balibago in Angeles, Pampanga last June 28, a week since she went missing. She was last seen alive via a CCTV footage in a Japanese restaurant were she met Arcenas on June 20.

 

The police said Tania travelled from Manila all the way to Angeles City to meet Arcenas and receive P400,000, but she failed to return home. The following day, June 21, Rose Mary Anne decided to report the disappearance of her 33-year-old sister to the local police.

 

Police later recovered Tania's two mobile phones from two men arrested for robbery in Malolos, Bulacan on June 22.

 

On June 27, Regina was visiting her vacant lot and checking her house, when she was "welcomed by an unusually strange and foul odor coming from inside the property," according to police. A police search resulted in the discovery of Tania's body in a pit at the back of the house, near the kitchen.

 

Authorities eventually used Dychioco's mother as a witness against her daughter and Arcenas.

 

Angela, meanwhile later told the police about finding the victim upon entering the house, and how her boyfriend asked her to help bury the body. 

 

Police said the details that Angela gave during the reenactment were consistent with the affidavit she earlier submitted to deny participating in the crime.

 

An autopsy showed the victim sustained a lone gunshot wound to the head through and through, with the bullet entering the back of her head and exiting her left cheek. She also had a contusion on her right shoulder.

 

The police had already recommended that Angela and her mother Regina be placed under the Witness Protection Program.

 

"With the principal suspect still at large, and while the elements of this office are on the manhunt, this office is of a strong belief that Angela, being the witness-participant in trying to conceal the crime and her mother, Regina, being the one who reported her doubts which led to the discovery of the cadaver, must be secured in order to preserve their statements and cooperation, protect their persons and so as not to frustrate the ends of justice," said Pampanga police head Chief Inspector Ferdinand Aguilar in his transmittal letter. — RSJ, GMA News