Suspect recounts how he killed Cebu teen

CEBU CITY, Philippines – Renato Llenes, the latest suspect arrested in the murder of 17-year-old Christine Silawan, said he stabbed her with scissors after learning the minor had a boyfriend

Llenes was presented to local media on Thursday, April 11, by Central Visayas police chief Debold Sinas and Philippine National Police chief Director General Oscar Albayalde.

“He narrated he was obsessed with Christine. He stabbed the victim with scissors,” Albayalde, who was in Cebu City to present the suspect to media, said in a press conference.

Silawan, a Grade 9 student of Maribago High School, was found naked from the waist down, her face skinned to the bone, in a vacant lot in Barangay Bangkal, Lapu-Lapu City, Cebu on March 11.

According to Llenes, he used a dummy Facebook account to become friends with Silawan.

“I made a dummy Facebook account to lure Christine. We chatted frequently until we became a couple on Facebook,” Llenes told reporters in Cebuano.

He said they fought when she realized that he wasn’t the person she met on Facebook, and he got angry when he learned she already had a boyfriend.

According to Albayalde, the suspect made an extrajudicial confession and said the victim was not raped but stabbed over 30 times.

“Ako giangkon tanan. Tungod sa drugas (I confess everything. It’s because of drugs),” Llenes said.

The police director said that Llenes allegedly learned how to skin a face from YouTube tutorials. Albayalde also mentioned the “Momo” challenge hoax that went viral in March.

The police’s first person of interest in the case was Jonas Bueno, a suspect in a similar murder incident in Danao City, Cebu. Bueno was arrested in Davao City on March 15, or 4 days after Silawan’s body was found. 

The National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) later caught Silawan’s 17-year-old ex-boyfriend on March 16. 

The boy, however, was released after the prosecutor found the arrest was illegal because the NBI did not have a warrant and it could not be considered a “hot pursuit” operation.

Police officials are considering the case as “solved” but not closed until after a suspect has been convicted.

Llenes said that his “conscience” led him to confess to the crime. He also hoped that the 17-year-old suspect would be let off the hook soon. – Ryan Macasero/Rappler.com