Cebu City Trial Court Metes Man In ‘Chop-Chop’ Case 2 Counts Of Reclusion Perpetua

A Cebu City Regional Trial Court has convicted of two counts of murder a man from Talisay City who chopped the bodies of two women and dumped them in 13 garbage bags in 2008.

RTC Branch 23 Presiding Judge Generosa Labra meted Richard Gudelosao, 36, the penalty of reclusion perpetua or imprisonment of 20 years and one day to 40 years for each of the two counts of murder for the deaths of Eva Mae Peligro and Gwendolyn Balasta on July 24, 2008.

The bodies of the women were chopped up and thrown down the ravine along Manipis Road, from Minglanilla town to Toledo City.

Peligro was a month away from becoming Gudelosao’s sister-in-law.

Labra also ordered Gudelosao to pay a total of PHP200,000 in damages to the two women’s families.

She gave no weight to his denials, “which are unsubstantiated by clear and convincing evidence” and overpowered by “the testimony of credible witnesses.”

But Judge Labra dismissed for lack of evidence the charges against Gudelosao’s live-in partner, Jean Antonette Medalle.

She ruled there was no evidence that Medalle conspired with Gudelosao to kill the two women.

The third accused, Joseph Roy Cellar, alias Jojo delos Reyes, was previously convicted after he confessed his role in the murders of the two women in Barangay Maghaway, Talisay City nearly eight years ago.

Labra had also sentenced Cellar to two reclusion perpetuas on April 5, 2011.

Cellar was also ordered to pay the heirs of Peligro PHP50,000 as civil indemnity and PHP50,000 as moral damages.(PNA) LAP/EB/EDS