Chinese murder suspect felt abandoned by family before suicide—witness

MANILA, Philippines—Feelings of despair and abandonment could have driven a Chinese suspect to suicide after the family he had claimed to have killed for ignored his pleas for legal and moral support.

A witness alleged on Monday night that he overheard a phone conversation on Friday afternoon, several hours after Chinese suspect Gong Yu Shang was arrested, between Gong, 27, a native of Fujian Shishi City in the People’s Republic of China, and his older sister where he was allegedly pleading for her and their parents to visit him in jail. But neither did.

In a sworn statement rendered Monday night, 62-year-old tourist guide Peter Chioa, who happened to be at the Manila Police District homicide section to follow up the investigation of the murder of his own nephew, Bull’s Eye laundry shop owner Kelvin Chioa, when Gong was arrested for the January 14 murder of 24-year-old Chinese tourist Zhao Chun Lan, of Gansu Province in the People’s Republic of China.

Chioa stated that at the time, MPD homicide section personnel were looking for someone who could translate their questions to a Chinese suspect whom he did not know personally, and that he had volunteered his services.

He claimed that last Friday, at around 5 p.m., Gong had asked him to fetch his mobile phone from his custodians, particularly deputy homicide chief, Senior Inspector Ismael Dela Cruz, at the homicide section holding cell so he could call his older sister.

Chioa said that he then overheard Gong telling his older sister in Chinese, “Could you come here tonight or maybe tomorrow because this might be the last time we see each other. I have so many things to ask you to do for me that I cannot tell you over the phone because I am beside somebody who understands Chinese.”

He further stated that Gong told his sister, “You are the only one who keeps a key to my house. Go there and gather all of my things,” before hanging up.

Chioa observed that Gong seemed very sad while he talked to his sister and that he told her in Chinese, “May ibibilin ako sa iyo (I have so many things to ask you to do for me).” The tourist guide further attested to the fact that he volunteered to give his statement and was never coerced to put it on record. Police said none of Gong’s relatives came by to see him while he was in police custody.

The MPD homicide section chief, Senior Inspector Joselito De Ocampo, told the Philippine Daily Inquirer that even before that phone conversation, they had accompanied Gong to his parents’ and uncle’s houses after his arrest and neither had come out of their homes to see him. Contrary to a previous report, Gong’s parents are in the country and not in China.

“We accompanied him to his parents house along Asuncion Street in Binondo because he (Gong) said that he had left the keys to his car (the vehicle he used to run over Zhao) there. When we got there with several barangay (village) officials, he kept on calling, ‘Mama, Papa’ but nobody went outside although there were obviously people inside the house,” De Ocampo recalled.

After their trip to the parents’ house, the homicide section chief pointed out, they proceeded to the house of Gong’s uncle along San Nicolas Street in Binondo but the uncle likewise apparently ignored pleas for him to come out of the house and see his nephew.

De Ocampo said that although Gong has died, which made the murder charge against him moot and academic, they would still have to file the case against him before the city prosecutor’s office, as a matter of procedure, and abide by the inquest fiscal’s disposition of the suit.

The MPD is conducting a deeper investigation into Gong’s alleged suicide on Saturday night when he allegedly grabbed a service firearm of a police escort on the way to the city prosecutor’s office and trained the gun on himself.

The MPD spokesman Chief Inspector Erwin Margarejo explained that the probe is part of standard operating procedure on incidents that give way to speculations of foul play.

The Chinese suspect, who admitted to killing his ex-girlfriend because she allegedly threatened to have his parents murdered, was being brought to the Manila City Prosecutor’s Office for inquest proceedings at around 9 p.m., Saturday, when he allegedly grabbed a gun from one of his custodians when their vehicle reached the corner of Taft Avenue and Ayala Boulevard in Ermita.

Gong allegedly said, “Sorry mama, sorry papa,” before shooting himself in the chin. He was brought to the Philippine General Hospital but he died while undergoing treatment.

With a report from Lucy Swinnen, Inquirer trainee