Missing 14-year-old dumped dead in Gapan, N. Ecija creek

The three-week search for a missing 14-year-old boy who was last seen with slain former University of the Philippines (UP) student Carl Angelo Arnaiz last August 18 ended in a morgue in Gapan City, Nueva Ecija, on Wednesday.

Looking for a birthmark on the left side of his neck and

a wart on the left knee, Eduardo de Guzman and his wife, Lina positively identified their missing son, Reynaldo, in the morgue after his body was discovered floating in Lumang Kinabayuhan creek in Gapan City with at least 30 stab wounds, mostly in the chest. They wondered why and how their son reached Gapan City.

Known as “Kulot,” Reynaldo, a Grade 5 student at the Maybunga Elementary School in Pasig City, was last seen near his house in Taytay, Rizal. He reportedly went with Arnaiz to buy snacks on the night both disappeared.

Arnaiz was himself traced by his family in a morgue after he was reportedly killed by two Caloocan City cops who claimed he resisted arrest and fired at them minutes after he reportedly robbed a taxi driver along C-3 in Caloocan City. Arnaiz is from Cainta, Rizal.

Supt. Peter Madria, director of the Gapan City police, said De Guzman’s face was covered with a shirt before it was wrapped with a packaging tape.

“Based on our investigators, he has at least 30 stab wounds but we will wait for the official report once the autopsy is done,” Madria told the Manila Bulletin in a phone interview.

Gapan City Mayor Emerson Pascual said residents in the area, where the victim’s body was dumped, noticed what they initially suspected as garbage thrown into the creek in Purok Gitna, Barangay San Roque at about 6 a.m. yesterday only to discover minutes later it was a corpse in orange shorts.

Madria said De Guzman could have been executed near the area where his cadaver was found by a resident of Barangay San Roque.

“The body is not yet decomposing so we suspect that he was just recently killed,” said Madria.

The boy’s parents were alerted by a post on social media about the body of a boy found in Gapan City that was shared several times.

Social media was already abuzz about the missing 14-year-old companion of Arnaiz who was feared dead like other missing persons. But Lina held on to her gut feel that her son was still alive somewhere until the tragic discovery yesterday.