Jun Torres

Gonzales’ missing kin buried in Nueva Ecija?

Balanga City, Bataan police teams were dispatched to Nueva Ecija after two suspects in the abduction of a couple believed to be close relatives of National Security Adviser Norberto Gonzales claimed that their bodies were taken to a secluded place in this province.

Senior Superintendent Manuel Gaerlan, Bataan police director, said that police teams are now coordinating with their Nueva Ecija counterparts to pinpoint the place where Rolando Gonzales, 61, and his wife Imelda, 50, were buried by their kidnappers.

The Gonzaleses, who were reportedly engaged in the lending business, were snatched after attending Sunday Mass at the St. Joseph Cathedral here last April 20.

Gaerlan said the confession of Allan Lopez, a leader of a kidnap-for-ransom syndicate operating in Central Luzon, who was arrested Monday night for the abduction of a two-year-old girl and her 16-year-old babysitter in Dinalupihan town, prompted them to reopen the Gonzaleses’ case.

Lopez supposedly told police investigators that the bodies of the couple were taken to a remote place in Nueva Ecija.

Bataan police teams were still scouring sites in the Nueva Ecija towns of Jaen, San Leonardo and Guimba where the Lopez gang could have buried the couple.

Balanga City Mayor Jose Enrique Garcia III has ordered the police to exert extra effort to locate the missing couple.