The man who was last with retired Court of Appeals (CA) justice Normandie Pizarro before he went missing on October 23 owed him some money, although the amount wasn’t much, said National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) Deputy Director Ferdinand Lavin.

Lavin told ANC’s Matters of Fact on Wednesday, December 23, this “person of interest” in the Pizarro slay case met the former judge at a casino last August.

“‘Yun ang kanilang common ground. Doon sila naging magkaibigan. Doon sila nag-meet. We got information that may utang siya kay Justice…. The amount is not really that much,” Lavin said.

(That was their common ground. That’s where they became friends. That’s where they met. We got information that he owed the Justice money…. The amount is not really that much.)

Investigators have yet to establish the motive for the crime, Lavin said. It could still have been work-related, personal, or a mix of both – as information on hand remain inconclusive.

The NBI is looking at “3 to 4 persons of interest” who may end up becoming suspects or witnesses in the case, Lavin added.

Of the 4 persons of interest, one – the man who owed Pizarro money – is “very cooperative” with investigators, having appeared before the NBI “2 or 3 times.”

“[His] level of cooperation is very interesting to us, considering that he came to the NBI with his counsel,” said Lavin, adding that investigators could not have taken the person’s statements without his lawyer beside him.

However, “he has given us conflicting statements, and the earlier statements would not match with the pieces of evidence we gathered on the ground,” Lavin added.

The NBI has “established” that this person of interest was the last person known to have been with Pizarro on October 23. Pizarro picked him up “somewhere in Clark, Pampanga,” at around midday.

Investigators were able to track Pizarro’s car using signals intelligence, and validated the information with human intelligence sources and CCTV footage.

At some point, the car reached an area “somewhere in Tarlac” that was “without signal.” This was where the person of interest claimed he got off Pizarro’s car.

“This, our agents found to be very dubious,” said Lavin.

Investigators are “not discounting the possibility that 2 or 3 or all persons of interest could have conspired to kill the Justice,” he added.

Shot in the back of his right ear

In the ANC interview, the NBI deputy director said Pizarro was shot in the back of his right ear. Lavin confirmed this to Rappler, adding that the bullet exited on the upper left part of Pizarro’s head.

Lavin declined to give further details in order to avoid preempting the case, he said.

Pizarro’s mutilated and decomposing body was found in Capas, Tarlac, on October 30, a week after he went missing. A DNA test yielded a 99.99% match. The Department of Justice then confirmed Pizarro’s death last Monday, December 21.

Pizarro had figured in a few controversies as a CA judge.

In April 2018, the Supreme Court (SC) en banc found the retired Pizarro guilty of conduct unbecoming of a member of the judiciary for gambling in a casino. The SC fined him P100,000.

Pizarro retired early from the CA in February 2018. Before this, he penned the controversial acquittal of former Palawan governor Joel Reyes in the Gerry Ortega murder case. The acquittal has since been reversed and the murder charge against Reyes, revived by a different set of CA justices.

Pizarro also penned a ruling that acquitted Janet Lim Napoles in her serious illegal detention case in May 2017.

Pizarro was the ponente of the ruling that nullified a Hawaii court decision that had granted $2 billion in damages to Martial Law victims. – Rappler.com