MABALACAT CITY – The police said they are not discounting anything in the investigation of the slain woman in Barangay Mabiga here on November 23 as new leads in the case continue to crop up. Supt. Henry Flores, city police chief, said a joint team of investigators under Task Force Marian (TFM) have been formed by Pampang Police Director Sr. Supt. Rodolfo Recomono Jr. to expedite the investigation.
“This is considered a sensational crime because the mayor has been tagged,” Flores said. But we are not discounting anything in our investigation, he added. Flores also urged other witnesses in the ambush-slaying of Marian Lucas Gantan, 29, to come out and help in the investigation.
Gantan was attacked by motorcycle riding suspects while on her way home on board her mother’s SUV along the busy MacArthur Highwayin Barangay Mabiga here. Flores explained that TFM is a joint police investigating team led by the city police force, the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) and the intelligence unit of the Pampanga Police Office.
Recomono is head of the task force while intelligence officers are hot on the leads of the murder case, he said. Flores, however, requested the media to withhold the initial findings of the task force soas not to pre-empt the investigation.
Mayor Marino “Boking” Morales, who was implicated by the victim’s mother Pyra Lucas, 47, as being responsible for her daughter’s death, has reiterated his order to the police “intensify” its investigation. Lucas, a self-proclaimed corruption crusader in this city, pointed to Morales as behind her daughter’s killing. But Flores said there is no direct evidence linking Morales to the killing other than the allegations of Lucas.
