3 charged over killing of Nueva Ecija guv’s aide

CABANATUAN CITY, Nueva Ecija — The police have declared as solved the killing of Mary Ann Hernandez, the administrative chief of Governor Czarina Umali, who was murdered in Talavera, this province last month.

Senior Supt. Eliseo Tanding, Nueva Ecija police director, said Wednesday charges of murder and frustrated murder have been filed against three persons who confessed to be lookouts in the killing.

They are, however, still looking for a man who contacted and paid the suspects, he added.

Anastacio Geron, 47, and his nephew, Armando Geron, 26, were arrested for illegal possession of firearms in Barangay Tondod, San Jose City on January 25.

During follow-up investigation, Tanding said, police extracted from the two suspects’ mobile phones information that linked them to the Hernandez case.

Days later, Reynaldo Iglesia, also of Barangay Tondod, San Jose City, surfaced and confessed his participation in the crime.

“We are making a ofllow-up on what they (suspects) divulged. It is an extra- judicial confession, so it would not revealed yet the names pending investigation so that we could get the one whom they said contacted and paid them (sic),” Tanding said.

Charges of murder and frustrated murder were filed against the Gerons and Iglesia before the provincial Prosecutors’ Office.

Tanding dismissed politics as motive behind the killing, saying Hernandez was never a politician.

The Special Investigation Task Group, he said, is still looking into several angles including work-related motive.

Hernandez was killed in front of her family, while fueling up her vehicle at a gasoline station shortly after they arrived from Baguio City. (Marilyn Galang/PNA)

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