Police still unsure if suicide or parricide on Ted Failon’s wife

Quezon City Police District (QCPD) acting chief Senior Superintendent Elmo San Diego said yesterday initial findings of the investigators have “strengthened” the parricide angle in the death of broadcast journalist Ted Failon’s wife who was shot last Wednesday in the couple’s house in Quezon City.

Failon and his relatives, however, insisted that Trinidad Arteche-Etong, 44, shot herself in their house at 27 General Aquino street, Tierra Pura Subdivision in Tandang Sora, Quezon City.

Failon (Mario Teodoro Failon Etong in real life), a news anchor of ABS-CBN TV Patrol, claimed that his wife committed suicide inside the bathroom of one of their daughters.

He said that his wife had experienced financial problems after the Holy Week.

Trinidad Etong suffered a gunshot wound in the left temple and died at the New Era General Hospital in Quezon City last Thursday night. Both Failon and his wife tested negative for powder burns, but forensic experts said paraffin tests are unreliable.

Asked how the parricide angle could be pursued, San Diego clarified that they would have to conduct further investigation.

Dr. Filemon Porciuncula, head of the QCPD Crime. Laboratory, said Failon and the other household helpers all tested negative for gunpowder burns and nitrates. Trinidad had also tested negative for gunpowder burns and nitrates. “This must be supported by the bullet trajectory found in the crime scene,” San Diego said.

“That (looking into the parricide angle) now appears to be the direction of the investigation,” he said.

Police arrested last Thursday driver Glenn Polan, housemaids Carlota Morbos and Wilfreda Bolleser, and houseboy Pacifico Apacible and brought them to the QCPD headquarters in Camp Karingal, Quezon City.

The police also took into custody Pamela Arteche, sister of the victim.

QCPD investigators said the sworn statements earlier given to the police by Failon and housemaid Morbos showed conflicting accounts of the events that transpired when Trinidad was found with a gunshot wound in the head.

Copies of the statements, with the conflicting entries already highlighted with a green marker, were shown to The STAR by a police source yesterday.

Superintendent Franklin Moises Mabanag, chief of the Quezon City Police District-Criminal Investigation and Detection Unit, also told reporters in an interview that Morbos described the victim to be in a sitting position while Failon said his wife was almost in a lying down position.

Mabanag, however, noted that Failon and the household helpers were consistent in saying that the cleaning of the bathroom where Trinidad was found and the vehicle used in bringing her to the hospital was not on orders of Failon.

Porciuncula said they would also test the bloodied shirt and pants worn by Failon on Wednesday afternoon. He said they had also requested for the clothes worn by Trinidad.

He said that they would determine the actual point of entry of the bullet in Trinidad’s head. Doctors at the New Era General Hospital had initially told them the point of entry was the victim’s left temple.

Philstar