Mortuary aide bares Korean’s fate

South Korean businessman Jee Ick- joo’s battered body was indeed cremated and his ashes flushed into the toilet upon the orders of a former policeman turned mortuary owner, an employee confirmed.

In her six- page affidavit, Epephany “Stephanie” Maraya Gotera, 32, said she had been working as a liaison officer for Gerardo “Ding” Santiago’s Gream Funeral Homes for three years. Her affidavit was submitted to the National Bureau of Investigation ( NBI) Task Force Against Illegal Drugs on Jan. 18.

Got era said Santiago called her into his office at around 10 p.m. on Oct .18, 2016 and told her a corpse would be brought to the mortuary, located in Barangay 165, Caloocan City. Around two hours later, two cars – Gotera described one as a black pickup and another one as a big black car – arrived.

Santiago shouted at four men – Gotera’s partner and three other Gream employees, including embalmer she named as Teody Tarife – to hurry up and take the body.

Gotera said Jee bore strangulation marks on his neck and scratches on his wrists that indicate he may have been handcuffed or tied up. One of Jee’s arms looked as if it was dislocated, she added.

“He looked as if he had been tortured and he seemed to have urinated in his pants,” she said in Filipino.

As soon as Jee’s body was in the mortuary, Gotera said Santiago told her to go to the barangay hall – he is chairman of Barangay 165 – so he could give her P16,000 to pay for the cremation.

At around 9 a.m. the next day, Gotera and the same men who brought in Jee’s body went to St. Nathaniel Crematory Services along C3 Road in Caloocan. The body was cremated an hour later.

Two hours after cremation, Gotera sent a text message asking Santiago what she should do with the ashes. Her employer replied that she could “throw them anywhere,” she added.

Since she did not know where to throw the ashes, she decided to take Jee’s cremains with her to the mortuary, where she and her partner lived as stay- in workers.

Flushed

Almost three months later, on Jan. 15, Santiago again sent a text message to Gotera asking if she had disposed of the ashes. She said she was afraid and told Santiago she had thrown them away even if she had not.

The next day, she asked her partner and two other employees to flush the ashes in the restroom of Gream’s chapel. They also broke the urn and threw the shards in the trash.

‘Unusual’

Gotera said it was the first time that the body of a foreigner was brought to the mortuary and that no relative claimed the remains.

She said she and other employees wondered what the foreigner had done to be tortured so badly.

Gotera said they would later learn on news reports that the body belonged to Jee.

The liaison officer also said she was familiar with the name Ricky Sta. Isabel. She knew him as her employer’s friend who would sometimes visit Santiago at the barangay hall.

The STAR earlier reported that Santiago – who retired with a rank of Senior Police Officer 4 in 2007 – and Senior Police Officer 3 Ricky Sta. Isabel were members of a group of policemen and civilians who “bolt in whenever they have work,” referring to kidnapping jobs.

The two police officials reportedly worked together in Caloocan when Sta. Isabel was assigned to the Northern Police District’s Criminal Investigation and Detection Unit.

Sta. Isabel along with Senior Police Officer 4 Roy Villegas, Ramon Yalung and four others named only as “Jerry,” “Pulis,” “Sir Dumlao” and “Ding,” were charged of kidnapping for ransom with homicide before the Angeles City Regional Trial Court Branch 58.

Upon his return to the country from a vacation with his family in Canada in late January, Santiago denied all accusations against him.

Fake papers

Gotera also presented to the NBI agents the death certificate used to process the cremation of the body at St. Nathaniel Crematory Services.

In the copy of the death certificate obtained by The

STAR, the death certificate indicated that the name of the dead was Jose Ruamar Salvador, a Filipino, a Catho- lic, a widower, born on Dec. 11, 1964, and died on Oct. 19, 2016 at the age of 51.

The document also listed his address as Champaca street in “Sta. Queteria,” Caloocan City.

The death certificate also said that he died from severe pneumonia he suffered for two weeks, with bronchial asthma for two years as the underlying cause and hypertension for five years as the antecedent cause.

Gotera said all the information in the death certificate was false and done upon Santiago’s orders.

She also presented the receipt from St. Nathaniel Crematory Services Inc. stating that it received P16,000 from her to process the cremation of the body named as “Jose Salvador.”