ILOILO – Nine days since 36-year-old businesswoman Claire Diergos was found dead in Santa Barbara town on Oct. 26, “Wala pa prime suspects,” admitted Police Colonel Gilbert Gorero, police provincial director.
But the Iloilo Police Provincial Office (IPPO) remains optimistic of cracking this case. Three more persons came forward and volunteered information yesterday, according to Police Executive Master Sergeant Francisco Lindero, the provincial police information officer and spokesperson.
Also, Gorero confirmed that polygraph experts from Camp Crame – the headquarters of the Philippine National Police in Quezon City – are now here to “test” Diergo’s house help, Rodilyn Sumbong of Barotac Nuevo town.
Lindero declined to identify the three persons who volunteered information but he said their inputs could help the special investigation team. Their statements were now being vetted.
“Bisan wala pa prime suspects pero we are optimistic na ma-identify gid na sila,” said Gorero. “Madamo na naga gwa kag maghatag sang ila knowledge sa sini nga case.”
Nothing is off the table. Angles being pursued include robbery, Diergos’ business dealings and personal relationships.
Diergos was a single mother. She had a three-year-old daughter. Her maid Sumbong, a person of interest in this case, would be subjected to a polygraph test.
A polygraph, popularly referred to as a lie detector test, is a device or procedure that measures and records several physiological indicators such as blood pressure, pulse, respiration, and skin conductivity while a person is asked and answers a series of questions.
Sumbong is a person of interest in Diergos’ slay but she is also deemed valuable by the special investigation task force in solving the crime.
She is currently in the police’s protective custody.
The special investigation team is mum on how many more persons of interest it has aside from Sumbong, who could also be a key witness, according to Police Major Raymond Celoso, chief of the Santa Barbara municipal police station and special investigation team leader.
In initial statements given to the police, Sumbong claimed she was sleeping soundly on the night of Oct. 24 when her employer was being stabbed to death in her house at Deca Homes subdivision in Pavia, Iloilo then spirited out by her attackers from the house and abandoned in Barangay Inangayan, Santa Barbara.
Task force probers, however, believe Sumbong may be holding back crucial information and that she may have been threatened by those who killed her employer.
Investigators took interest in Sumbong; she was newly hired. Oct. 24 was her first day of work. No less than Diergos fetched her at the Tagbak transport terminal in Jaro, Iloilo City in the afternoon of Oct. 24.
“Daku ang mga tawo sa likod sang krimen. Tama ka tanda ang mga culprits,” according to Celoso.
The task force established through a luminol test that the assailants cleaned Diergos’ room to erase traces of their crime.
The test found blood traces on the floor, wall, bed, blanket of Diergos’ three-year-old daughter, table, wall of the comfort room, Diergos’ dressing room, and the cover of the washing machine.
Celoso said it was clear that Diergos was already dead when she was abandoned in her sport utility vehicle in Barangay Inangayan, Santa Barbara early morning on Oct. 25.
Luminol solution contains both luminol (C8H7N3O2) and hydrogen peroxide (H2O2). The hydrogen peroxide reacts with the iron in the blood to produce oxygen.
Forensic scientists spray luminol onto surfaces to detect invisible blood stains./PN