Authorities confirmed there’s no evidence to link Jonas Bueno, a two-year fugitive from Cebu who was recently arrested in Talomo area, in the mutilation of a 16-year-old girl in Lapu-Lapu City.
With this, the Police Regional Office cleared Bueno in the death of Christine Lee Silawan who was reportedly raped and the skin of her skull peeled off.
“He has no direct link in the slay of Silawan,” Police Regional Director Chief Supt. Marcelo Morales said in a message yesterday. “He has been in Mindanao since last year.”
Silawan’s body was found last March 10 in Lapu-lapu City in the island of Mactan in Cebu province in Visayas region.
When Bueno was arrested last Friday, it was reported that he was a “person of interest” in the SIlawan case.
But authorities confirmed that Bueno’s educational background did not fit the victim’s last chat mate on social media, tagged as the primary suspect.
Bueno only finished Grade 4. “He still used an analogue cellphone,” said Chief Supt. Milgrace Driz, the team leader of CIDG Davao City Field Unit that arrested Bueno in Barangay Matina Crossing, Talomo District on Friday, the eve of Araw ng Davao.
Bueno reportedly said he last used Facebook in 2011 and has no idea what a messenger is.
“Bueno doesn’t know how to speak English,” Driz said, adding that the person who last communicated with Silawan was in her age bracket.
This as the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) yesterday confirmed that they have arrested a 17-year-old boy in connection with Silawan’s case. The suspect, name withheld, was last seen together with the victim based on the closed-circuit-television (CCTV) footage that authorities had retrieved.
But Bueno is still not yet off the hook.
Temporarily detained at the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) XI, he will soon be transferred to the Cebu Provincial Police to face an unrelated case that he was facing in Cebu.
In 2017, Bueno was charged for robbery with homicide with his brother Junry and brother-in-law Jury Mal-ang for the death of a 72-year-old farmer named Boboy Lumen in Carmen, a town in Cebu. The warrant of arrest, issued by Judge Jerry Dicdican of Regional Trial Court Branch 25 in Danao City, Cebu, was implemented by the CIDG in arresting Bueno. The two other accused were earlier killed.
On March 4, 2018, Bueno evaded arrest as he brought his common-law-wife and two kids to Nasipit, Agusan del Norte where they stayed in a relative’s house in Buenavista, Agusan del Norte.
Last Feb. 22, Bueno and his family went to his partner’s cousin in Balusong, Barangay Matina Crossing, Talomo District.
On March 11, Bueno started working in a construction in Guadalupe, Matina Crossing. He used the name Jason Marten.
It was in Matina Crossing that he was arrested.
Driz said they traced that Bueno was convicted for a theft case in Carmen, Cebu wayback in 2011. He was detained at the Cebu Provincial Jail until 2016.
As he was bearing an alleged demonic tattoo at his neck, it was reported that he was a member of a cult that victimized residents in Cebu.
But Bueno denied the allegation saying he’s a Catholic, and he got the tattoo while serving his jail term in the first theft case.
Driz said they are digging further on the background of the arrested fugitive.
