Elusive fugitive Victorino Mangabat Jr. alias Jay Ar Mangabat and Francis Domingo Ortega, who was wanted in Ilocos Norte for the brutal murder of a university student here, was shot, wounded and arrested during a police operation in Tuguegarao City, Cagayan, authorities reported.
However, he did not survive his fatal wound while under hospital arrest. He succumbed to death at the emergency room as doctors struggled to revive him.
Mangabat was tagged as the alleged killer of pretty graduating student Jemima Kezia Mata Andres, 19, of Mariano Marcos State University in Batac City, Ilocos Norte.
Her body bore gunshot wound in the head when found dumped along the highways at Brgy. San Cristobal in Sarrat, Ilocos Norte on Aug. 4, 2015. The suspect allegedly befriended the victim through the Facebook and eventually became sweethearts, report said.
The initial police report on Mangabat’s death was relayed to the Ilocos Norte police provincial office at Camp Juan in Laoag City on Tuesday, Jan. 19 by police authorities in Tuguegarao City, Cagayan in Region 2.
In a local television interview by Isabela-based broadcaster, Supt. Jessie Tamayao, Tuguegarao police chief, said Mangabat expired on Tuesday afternoon, Jan. 19 at the Tuguegarao hospital where he was being treated for serious gunshot wound in the upper chest.
Tamayao said Mangabat aboard a carnap white Montero sports SUV was arrested on Jan. 18 in a dramatic action. Unlike before, the suspect was slightly bearded and bemustached. Earlier, he was spotted in the vicinity of Tuguegarao when a gasoline station complained to the police that he refueled his SUV but did not pay his P1,600 gas bill and fled.
During a pursuit operation, he was flagged down to stop at a checkpoint but he ignored it breaking the barricade.
A car chase ensued. He sideswiped several vehicles along his escape route. When cornered, he resisted arrest, hence, he was shot and wounded in the process by the arresting officer, Tamayao added.
Also arrested were his companions, his mother Adelia Mangabat, 60, who tried to escape with him and a young woman from Bicol region. Likewise, found and rescued inside the SUV was Mangabat’s three-year-old son.
Commenting on the fugitive’s bloody end, Tamayao said now that Mangabat is dead, all his criminal cases would be closed and gone as exempting circumstances. Mangabat was also wanted by lawmen in other provinces and Metro Manila for various criminal offenses.
Meanwhile, Reynaldo Andres, father of Jemima, heaved a sigh of relief saying that owing to the arrest and subsequent death of Mangabat, his family (the Andres family) deemed that they had finally got justice for their slain beloved daughter. (tsg w/ report from broadcast media)
