Boy, 13, hammered to death

By Jennifer P. Rendon

Police investigators have yet to identify the assailant who attacked a 13-year-old boy inside their house at Barangay Casalsagan, Pototan, Iloilo evening of March 29, 2022.

The boy’s father, Raul Pacheco, Jr., came home from work around 6:30 p.m. Tuesday only to see his son sprawled on the floor with an apparent head injury.

Beside the body of Jay-R (not his real name) was a ball hammer believed to have been used in killing him.

Pacheco immediately took his son to the hospital but the latter did not pull through.

Major Ciriaco Esquilarga, Pototan police chief, said the victim’s father, who is a carpenter, initially looked for the boy at their Piso Net shop but did not find him.

Pacheco went inside their house through their kitchen and later saw his son’s body.

Aside from the head injury, it is also possible that the boy was strangled because of some marks on his neck.

Esquilarga said they could not yet rule on any motive on the killing.

Pacheco told investigators that his son had no enemies.

But lately, they claimed that they had been losing earnings from their Piso Net shop, hinting that someone might have been stealing from it.

“It’s possible that the boy caught the perpetrator. Because he and the perpetrator knew each other, the latter decided to kill him,” Esquilarga said.

Pacheco said they owned the ball hammer found near the victim’s body.

It was gathered that Pacheco and his second wife had been estranged. The latter works abroad, and their only child was left to his care.

Pacheco has two other children from a previous marriage.