The Vizconde Massacre Case: Jessica Alfaro's Narrative vs. What May Have Happened
The Vizconde Massacre is still a Case Unclosed. Sadly, the late Lauro Vizconde had false hope when the suspects were identified and convicted. Later on, Lauro broke into grief when Hubert Webb and his co-accused were acquitted. Sadly, Lauro died without knowing who really murdered his wife and two daughters. I'm going to do a common-sense analysis of the Vizconde Case. The Vizconde Case was often tagged as the "trial of the century" back in my day. I used to believe the narrative of arrogant rich boys caused the crime. However, an arrogant person is barely subtle. I decided to read the Supreme Court decision in 2010. Sadly, the same Supreme Court decision is still sticking to the faulty narrative that Francisco Juan G. Larrañaga was guilty. This was probably done to protect Atty. Hilario G. Davide's reputation, who was Chief Justice at that time in 2004.
Looking back at the narrative vs. common sense
Instead, I decided to focus on the narrative by Jessica Alfaro, the "star witness." If we must analyze the narrative, it's just too full of holes and would be the weaponization of grief. There's this expression that says, "As long as there's someone to convict, we get justice." Never mind that a crime can happen but the wrong people were arrested. Now for the narrative by Jessica, which I found just as mind-boggling as Davidson Rusia's testimony in 1998:
Alfaro's Story
Based on the prosecution's version, culled from the decisions of the trial court and the Court of Appeals, on June 29, 1991 at around 8:30 in the evening, Jessica Alfaro drove her Mitsubishi Lancer, with boyfriend Peter Estrada as passenger, to the Ayala Alabang Commercial Center parking lot to buy shabu from Artemio "Dong" Ventura. There, Ventura introduced her to his friends: Hubert Jeffrey P. Webb, Antonio "Tony Boy" Lejano, Miguel "Ging" Rodriguez, Hospicio "Pyke" Fernandez, Michael Gatchalian, and Joey Filart. Alfaro recalled frequently seeing them at a shabu house in Parañaque in January 1991, except Ventura whom she had known earlier in December 1990.
As Alfaro smoked her shabu, Webb approached and requested her to relay a message for him to a girl, whom she later identified as Carmela Vizconde. Alfaro agreed. After using up their shabu, the group drove to Carmela's house at 80 Vinzons Street, Pitong Daan Subdivision, BF Homes, Parañaque City. Riding in her car, Alfaro and Estrada trailed Filart and Rodriguez who rode a Mazda pick-up and Webb, Lejano, Ventura, Fernandez, and Gatchalian who were on a Nissan Patrol car.
On reaching their destination, Alfaro parked her car on Vinzons Street, alighted, and approached Carmela's house. Alfaro pressed the buzzer and a woman came out. Alfaro queried her about Carmela. Alfaro had met Carmela twice before in January 1991. When Carmela came out, Alfaro gave her Webb's message that he was just around. Carmela replied, however, that she could not go out yet since she had just arrived home. She told Alfaro to return after twenty minutes. Alfaro relayed this to Webb who then told the group to drive back to the Ayala Alabang Commercial Center.
The group had another shabu session at the parking lot. After sometime, they drove back but only Alfaro proceeded to Vinzons Street where Carmela lived. The Nissan Patrol and the Mazda pick-up, with their passengers, parked somewhere along Aguirre Avenue. Carmela was at their garden. She approached Alfaro on seeing her and told the latter that she (Carmela) had to leave the house for a while. Carmela requested Alfaro to return before midnight and she would leave the pedestrian gate, the iron grills that led to the kitchen, and the kitchen door unlocked. Carmela also told Alfaro to blink her car's headlights twice when she approached the pedestrian gate so Carmela would know that she had arrived.
Alfaro returned to her car but waited for Carmela to drive out of the house in her own car. Alfaro trailed Carmela up to Aguirre Avenue where she dropped off a man whom Alfaro believed was Carmela's boyfriend. Alfaro looked for her group, found them, and relayed Carmela's instructions to Webb. They then all went back to the Ayala Alabang Commercial Center. At the parking lot, Alfaro told the group about her talk with Carmela. When she told Webb of Carmela's male companion, Webb's mood changed for the rest of the evening ("bad trip").
Webb gave out free cocaine. They all used it and some shabu, too. After about 40 to 45 minutes, Webb decided that it was time for them to leave. He said, "Pipilahan natin siya [Carmela] at ako ang mauuna." Lejano said, "Ako ang susunod" and the others responded "Okay, okay." They all left the parking lot in a convoy of three vehicles and drove into Pitong Daan Subdivision for the third time. They arrived at Carmela's house shortly before midnight.
Alfaro parked her car between Vizconde's house and the next. While waiting for the others to alight from their cars, Fernandez approached Alfaro with a suggestion that they blow up the transformer near the Vizconde's residence to cause a brownout ("Pasabugin kaya natin ang transformer na ito"). But Alfaro shrugged off the idea, telling Fernandez, "Malakas lang ang tama mo." When Webb, Lejano, and Ventura were already before the house, Webb told the others again that they would line up for Carmela but he would be the first. The others replied, "O sige, dito lang kami, magbabantay lang kami."
Alfaro was the first to pass through the pedestrian gate that had been left open. Webb, Lejano, and Ventura followed her. On entering the garage, Ventura using a chair mounted the hood of the Vizcondes' Nissan Sentra and loosened the electric bulb over it ("para daw walang ilaw"). The small group went through the open iron grill gate and passed the dirty kitchen. Carmela opened the aluminum screen door of the kitchen for them. She and Webb looked each other in the eyes for a moment and, together, headed for the dining area.
As she lost sight of Carmela and Webb, Alfaro decided to go out. Lejano asked her where she was going and she replied that she was going out to smoke. As she eased her way out through the kitchen door, she saw Ventura pulling out a kitchen drawer. Alfaro smoked a cigarette at the garden. After about twenty minutes, she was surprised to hear a woman's voice ask, "Sino yan?" Alfaro immediately walked out of the garden to her car. She found her other companions milling around it. Estrada who sat in the car asked her, "Okay ba?"
After sitting in the car for about ten minutes, Alfaro returned to the Vizconde house, using the same route. The interior of the house was dark but some light filtered in from outside. In the kitchen, Alfaro saw Ventura searching a lady's bag that lay on the dining table. When she asked him what he was looking for, he said: "Ikaw na nga dito, maghanap ka ng susi." She asked him what key he wanted and he replied: "Basta maghanap ka ng susi ng main door pati na rin ng susi ng kotse." When she found a bunch of keys in the bag, she tried them on the main door but none fitted the lock. She also did not find the car key.
Unable to open the main door, Alfaro returned to the kitchen. While she was at a spot leading to the dining area, she heard a static noise (like a television that remained on after the station had signed off). Out of curiosity, she approached the master's bedroom from where the noise came, opened the door a little, and peeked inside. The unusual sound grew even louder. As she walked in, she saw Webb on top of Carmela while she lay with her back on the floor. Two bloodied bodies lay on the bed. Lejano was at the foot of the bed about to wear his jacket. Carmela was gagged, moaning, and in tears while Webb raped her, his bare buttocks exposed.
Webb gave Alfaro a meaningful look and she immediately left the room. She met Ventura at the dining area. He told her, "Prepare an escape. Aalis na tayo." Shocked with what she saw, Alfaro rushed out of the house to the others who were either sitting in her car or milling on the sidewalk. She entered her car and turned on the engine but she did not know where to go. Webb, Lejano, and Ventura came out of the house just then. Webb suddenly picked up a stone and threw it at the main door, breaking its glass frame.
As the three men approached the pedestrian gate, Webb told Ventura that he forgot his jacket in the house. But Ventura told him that they could not get in anymore as the iron grills had already locked. They all rode in their cars and drove away until they reached Aguirre Avenue. As they got near an old hotel at the Tropical Palace area, Alfaro noticed the Nissan Patrol slow down. Someone threw something out of the car into the cogonal area.
The convoy of cars went to a large house with high walls, concrete fence, steel gate, and a long driveway at BF Executive Village. They entered the compound and gathered at the lawn where the "blaming session" took place. It was here that Alfaro and those who remained outside the Vizconde house learned of what happened. The first to be killed was Carmela's mother, then Jennifer, and finally, Carmella. Ventura blamed Webb, telling him, "Bakit naman pati yung bata?" Webb replied that the girl woke up and on seeing him molesting Carmela, she jumped on him, bit his shoulders, and pulled his hair. Webb got mad, grabbed the girl, pushed her to the wall, and repeatedly stabbed her. Lejano excused himself at this point to use the telephone in the house. Meanwhile, Webb called up someone on his cellular phone.
At around 2:00 in the morning, accused Gerardo Biong arrived. Webb ordered him to go and clean up the Vizconde house and said to him, "Pera lang ang katapat nyan." Biong answered, "Okay lang." Webb spoke to his companions and told them, "We don't know each other. We haven't seen each other...baka maulit yan." Alfaro and Estrada left and they drove to her father's house.[12]
As I watched the Vizconde Massacre documentary on YouTube (can't be played here due to the blatant age restriction requirement), I felt there were many things off. As I watched the video, the Vizcondes were living in BF Homes, Parañaque, a gated, highly guarded subdivision. I was thinking that Jessica's story couldn't fit if you use common sense. Again, I don't blame Lauro for believing the lies, because a highly stressed-out person who had been seeking justice since 1991 would certainly want justice to be served. However, details given from the video reveal that people woke in shock to the bloody outcome of the Vizconde Massacre on June 30, 1991, and the trial only became public four years later, in August 1995!
Jessica's claim that they bought the drugs at the Ayala Alabang Commercial Center parking lot is plain suicide. It's way too open that even corrupt cops would think twice about accepting money to cover up such a blatantly reckless crime. What crook in the right mind would sell drugs at the parking lot of a well-known mall when even in a corrupt country, drugs are still illegal? Also, who was this Artemio "Dong" Ventura anyway? It's said he fled the country but so far, his photo was never there. Either the name was a random drop (because the name is common) or this was Jessica's ex-boyfriend. I have a hunch it was all bitter ex-talk that was taking place, in dragging Artemio's name into the dirt.
The effect of shabu on the brain vs. Jessica's narrative
As I looked into the given details, the elephant in the room with Jessica's testimony was the use of drugs. Jessica's testimony says that the group had a shabu session. I decided to go get information from the American Addiction Centers to finally use common sense to defeat the Jessica Alfaro Narrative:
How Meth Works in the Brain
The mechanism of action of the drug is similar to other stimulants, in that met use results in massive releases of the neurotransmitters norepinephrine and dopamine (along with other neurotransmitters) that lead to a number of extremely powerful euphoric effects, increases in energy, feelings of invulnerability, and other psychoactive effects. Because the substance is often made with a number of other substances that are potentially toxic, such as antifreeze, battery acid, or drain cleaner, it is both dangerous to use and highly combustible, making it dangerous to manufacture. Research regarding the short-term and long-term effects of methamphetamine use indicates that there are a number of significant potential dangers associated with its use, including significant neurological effects.
It's easy to scapegoat drug users and drug addicts over what they couldn't do. The more I think about the details, the more one can say that the narrative feels more like a slasher film plot than a real criminal narrative. If the people were truly on drugs, including those who drove the cars, it would've been high risk. These people would've road-raged and perhaps killed several people going to the destination. In short, assuming Hubert and the co-accused had drugs before going to BF Homes Parañaque, the whole car would've crashed.
Given the effects of shabu, the group would've caused the people to lack one thing needed to escape: subtlety. Jessica's story already shows a noisy crime, so how in the world can drug-crazed maniacs even stage such a crime in 1991 and only get caught in 1995? How can people under the influence of shabu even manage to escape a crime scene if their minds were no longer in a state of caution? They wouldn't even think of how to create a decoy, much less how to do the crime quietly so as not to wake the neighbors.
If Jessica were really under shabu influence, then how can she "perfectly recall" such details? How can she claim to remember details like the 20-minute session? It gets more and more suspicious because the story of a self-confessed drug addict needs examination. For one, Jessica was probably paid to lie or she was actually tortured. However, my speculation is that Jessica was actually paid to lie, as the documentary reveals she was an informant.
Why an inside job might be possible (personal theory)
Introduction
Crime scene staging consists of the purposeful manipulation of the scene in order to mislead investigators [1], [2], [3], [4]. It can be conducted by adding, removing, and changing the position of the evidence (physical staging) or filing a false missing-person report about the victim in order to redirect the investigation (verbal staging) [2], [5], [6]. It is difficult to gather data about the prevalence of staging. In fact, most of the cases described in the literature are based on personal experiences of the investigators and the authors [6]. In addition, to date few authors have dealt with this topic trying to estimate the extent of this phenomenon [7]. Analyzing 5224 homicides from the Washington State Attorney General’s Homicide Investigation and Tracking System’s database on murder between 1981 and 2000, Keppel and Weis [8] described staging in 0.1% of the total cases. In 2014 Schlesinger [5], evaluating 946 homicides, reported staging in 79 cases (8.35%). Different types of staging have been described on the basis of many aspects such as characteristics of the victim and of the offender, victim discovery, method and cause of death, weapons, relationship between the offender and the victim, types of staging, alibi, etc. [7]. A careful collection and a correct evaluation of all the available data are fundamental in order to identify any source of inconsistencies and to understand the real course of the events [2]. In order to gather data that may be useful to identify all the possible characteristics of the different types of staging, the authors of this paper conducted a literature review and report the peculiar findings of two cases of staging that were identified by an analysis of physical and digital evidence. In the first case, the offender staged the crime scene by means of a social network (Facebook®), while the second one used cell phone text messages. In the latter case, the offender altered the crime scene to avoid prosecution for two different homicides which had occurred three years apart.
That's why I believe it's an inside job. There are many ways that I thought about how it could've happened. My speculations and take note that I'm not a criminologist are:
- The murderers of the Vizcondes had to be familiar faces. Why do you think they were able to do the crime almost undetected in 1991 and still be out there somewhere today? That's how they would know the layouts.
- Expert crooks know how to unlock doors with very little noise. These are the bobby pin method and the use-a-card method to unlock doors quietly.
- The murderers were actually house guests who probably struck when they least suspected it.
- The man who raped Carmela was actually an acquaintance or someone who knew them well. The person was probably a person Carmela rejected.
- It's possible that Jennifer was the first to go. If Jennifer wasn't killed as quickly as possible, a noisy seven-year-old child is bound to awaken the entire neighborhood.
- Another possible way is the divide and conquer. Jennifer and her mother, Estrellita, were the first to go before Carmela was raped and later murdered.
- Carmela was probably saved best for last by whoever raped her. An entire gang entering her room would be noisy and illogical. I believe the rapist had the two killed to "leave out witnesses".
- I haven't left out the possibility of the Vizconde girls being sedated by the crooks. It's possible that the guests managed to sneak in sedatives before they were administered to them.
- After that, this small gang would've arranged the corpses in such a confusing way. The decision to put the mother and younger sister on the bed while Carmela's raped body on the floor was to distract the cops.
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