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The Cebu City Prosecutor's Office dropped parricide charges filed against a pastor who was accused of killing his wife five months ago.
In a June 23 resolution, Assistant City Prosecutor Liceria Lofranco-Rabillas recommended that the case against the Pastor Leonardo Jastiva, president of the International Missionary Society of the Seventh Day Adventist Church be dismissed for “insufficiency of evidence.”
While the police were able to show that text messages sent by the alleged kidnappers came from the pastor’s phone and were forwarded to his other cellular phone, there was no showing that Jastiva himself made the messagess, said the prosecutor.
Taken alone, without any other evidence, the text messages could not be made a basis for concluding that the pastor is the culprit.
“Suspicion or accusation is not synonymous with guilt. Without substantial evidence, any conclusion pointing to the respondent as the killer would merely be based on pure speculation or conjecture,” the resolution said.
“There may be strong reasons to suspect that Jastiva may had a hand in the killing of his wife, Judith, but under the law and existing jurisprudence mere suspicion, no matter how strong, can never ripen into evidence,” Rabillas said.
The pastor’s lawyer Agueda Tiu-Monteclar told Cebu Daily News the order to dismiss the case vindicated his client.
The prosecutor said there was grave and serious doubt in the charge of the Cebu City police Crimes Against Person Unit for the purpose of determining probable cause.
The resolution was approved by Cebu City Prosecutor Nicolas Sellon.
The prosecutor noted that the uncooperative and strange behavior of the pastor was not sufficient to conclude that he was the culprit.
The kidnapping had its bizarre elements with the 42-year-old pastor as the one who reported his wife’s disappearance on Feb. 9, 2009 and the only witness to the crime.
He told police he and his wife Judith, 38, were heading home to barangay San Isidro, Talisay City, on board a motorcycle past 8 p.m. when they were blocked by a blue Mitsubishi Lancer sedan.
He said the perpetrators chained him to his motorbike then forced Judith into the car.
The pastor soon found himself a suspect and his story of abduction doubted by the police.
The pastor was arrested and detained in the CCPO headquarters on Feb. 19.
Police arrested him after discovering that one of Jastiva's two cellular phones had the same number as the sender of threatening text messages from the kidnappers.
Another text message allegedly forwarded by Jastiva to the police led authorities to hinterland village of Tabunan, Cebu City where Judith’s decomposed body was found on Feb. 18.
No clear motive for the crime has been established. And with the dismissal of the charges, police will have to look for more evidence or for another suspect.
