Church says suspect in Calapan student slay is not its pastor

CALAPAN CITY, Oriental Mindoro — Authorities have taken into police custody the prime suspect in the killing of a nursing student who was found dead at a vacant lot in Calapan City over the weekend, officials confirmed on Monday.

The suspect was initially identified as a 26-year-old church pastor, who voluntarily surrendered to responding officers along Legarda Street in Quiapo, Manila, early Monday, Police Colonel Gerry Laylo, Police Regional Intelligence Division Chief, said. 

But a senior church official said the man, who was detained in connection with the killing of a 20-year-old nursing student, is not an ordained pastor of the Church of Christ.

Article continues after this advertisement

READ: Woman found dead in Calapan was 20-year-old college student

FEATURED STORIES

NEWSINFO

NEWSINFO

NEWSINFO

While the suspect had attended the church’s seminary and had served as an intern at one of its churches in Mindoro, he was never ordained as a full-fledged pastor, said Pastor Gerwin F. Castillo, Senior Pastor of the Lealtad Church of Christ and Director of the Center for International Cooperation and Development–International Christian College of Manila, in an interview with the Inquirer on Monday. 

“While we condemn this dastardly act — especially since the victim is a member of our church in Bongabong — we strongly deny the claim that the perpetrator is a shepherd of the Church,” Castillo said in a telephone interview.

Castillo added that the church’s pastors and members in Oriental Mindoro have been deeply affected and saddened by the incident, which has drawn their community into the spotlight at a time of shared grief over the victim.

He assured the public that the church is cooperating with authorities. 

The body of the nursing student was discovered at a vacant lot along a barangay road in Barangay Sapul early Saturday morning./coa