2 get life terms for killing Filipina in Canada in '07
Two Ecuadorean tradesmen have been sentenced to life imprisonment for the killing of a Filipina housekeeper in Canada in 2007 — a case that was considered as “highest-profiled" that year.
An eleven-member jury found Cristian Figueroa and Fabian Loayza-Penaloza guilty of killing Dulnuan, a housekeeper of a huge mansion in Toronto’s suburb of Mississauga.
The decision was handed down on June 11, according to a report on Canada-based news site The Star.
Dulnuan was strangled in October 2007 after the suspects broke into the $15-million mansion where she worked as a live-in housekeeper, shocking the residents of the posh Mississauga neighborhood in Ontario.
She was found with a thin braided copper wire wrapped twice around her neck and tightly tied with a knot at her throat. Her left hand was likewise bound with the same wire, while her feet were tied using her sweater.
Figueroa, 37, and Loayza-Penaloza, 30, showed no emotion when the verdict was read Friday afternoon in a Brampton City courtroom on Friday, the report noted.
“Very well justified" decision
Justice John Sprout said the decision, which deliberated for two days, was “very well justified" in light of the evidence presented during the month-long trial, according to the report.
The two convicts, charged with first-degree murder, pleaded not guilty but instead pointed to each other as the lone killer of Dulnuan.
While admitting that they broke into the 30,000-square foot mansion to commit burglary on October 1, 2007, both convicts said they never harmed the victim.
Crown prosecutors Steve Sherriff and Carrie Stoddard said the tradesmen attacked Dulnuan while she was cooking and confined her in the basement kitchen of the mansion, where she was strangled to death.
According to the report, Figueroa testified he tried but failed to save Dulnuan when he found Loayza-Penalosa strangling her from behind.
Figueroa’s DNA was subsequently found under Dulnuan’s fingernails.
Loayza-Penaloza, a long-time painter at the mansion, insisted he brought Figueroa inside the mansion to do an ocular inspection for a future break-in. Figueroa, however, took a safe from the master bedroom and said he left the maid tied up in her bedroom.
Dulnuan’s body was later found by her employer, Dr. Jayshree Chanchlani, when she got home after 5 p.m. that day. Her husband, a businessman, was on an overseas trip.
The housekeeper’s slaying was one of Greater Toronto Area’s (GTA) “highest-profiled cases of the year," the report said.
Vindication for Dulnuan
A separate report by Romeo Marquez of the Philippine Village Voice in Canada said Philippine Consul General Minerva Falcon has praised the jury’s decision.
“It’s a vindication for somebody who gave herself unselfishly," Falcon was quoted as saying.
Dulnuan, a native of Ifugao province, was 27 when she was killed. She had a degree in criminology from the University of Baguio.
However, in 2005, she sought employment overseas and joined her mother who was a housekeeper in Hong Kong.
In November 2006, she came to Canada and worked several jobs in the GTA before working for the affluent Chanchlani family.
"She came here like everybody else; to make a living and help her family. We just can’t believe it," said Fay Hangdaan, who lives in Toronto and is the cousin of Dulnuan's fiancé, in another report in the Star.
Prior to the killing, Dulnuan mentioned to her friends she feared for her safety.
"There's a second door in the back of the house that leads to the basement where her room is. She told me the last time I saw her that there's a river behind the house, so someone could just pass onto the (property) there, around the gates," said a housekeeper who spoke with Dulnuan the morning she was killed, as quoted in the report.
Dulnuan left behind a two-year-old daughter and a fiancé.
Her remains took three weeks to be repatriated to the Philippines, as the Philippine Consulate in Toronto had said it does not have enough fund to repatriate Dulnuan’s body, and that she was an “unregistered" worker.
Dulnuan’s fellow Filipino workers in Toronta earlier clamored that her killers be sentenced to death, but Canada abolished death penalty in 1976. - with Joseph Lariosa/KBK, GMANews.TV
An eleven-member jury found Cristian Figueroa and Fabian Loayza-Penaloza guilty of killing Dulnuan, a housekeeper of a huge mansion in Toronto’s suburb of Mississauga.
The decision was handed down on June 11, according to a report on Canada-based news site The Star.
Dulnuan was strangled in October 2007 after the suspects broke into the $15-million mansion where she worked as a live-in housekeeper, shocking the residents of the posh Mississauga neighborhood in Ontario.
She was found with a thin braided copper wire wrapped twice around her neck and tightly tied with a knot at her throat. Her left hand was likewise bound with the same wire, while her feet were tied using her sweater.
Figueroa, 37, and Loayza-Penaloza, 30, showed no emotion when the verdict was read Friday afternoon in a Brampton City courtroom on Friday, the report noted.
“Very well justified" decision
Justice John Sprout said the decision, which deliberated for two days, was “very well justified" in light of the evidence presented during the month-long trial, according to the report.
The two convicts, charged with first-degree murder, pleaded not guilty but instead pointed to each other as the lone killer of Dulnuan.
While admitting that they broke into the 30,000-square foot mansion to commit burglary on October 1, 2007, both convicts said they never harmed the victim.
Crown prosecutors Steve Sherriff and Carrie Stoddard said the tradesmen attacked Dulnuan while she was cooking and confined her in the basement kitchen of the mansion, where she was strangled to death.
According to the report, Figueroa testified he tried but failed to save Dulnuan when he found Loayza-Penalosa strangling her from behind.
Figueroa’s DNA was subsequently found under Dulnuan’s fingernails.
Loayza-Penaloza, a long-time painter at the mansion, insisted he brought Figueroa inside the mansion to do an ocular inspection for a future break-in. Figueroa, however, took a safe from the master bedroom and said he left the maid tied up in her bedroom.
Dulnuan’s body was later found by her employer, Dr. Jayshree Chanchlani, when she got home after 5 p.m. that day. Her husband, a businessman, was on an overseas trip.
The housekeeper’s slaying was one of Greater Toronto Area’s (GTA) “highest-profiled cases of the year," the report said.
Vindication for Dulnuan
A separate report by Romeo Marquez of the Philippine Village Voice in Canada said Philippine Consul General Minerva Falcon has praised the jury’s decision.
“It’s a vindication for somebody who gave herself unselfishly," Falcon was quoted as saying.
Dulnuan, a native of Ifugao province, was 27 when she was killed. She had a degree in criminology from the University of Baguio.
However, in 2005, she sought employment overseas and joined her mother who was a housekeeper in Hong Kong.
In November 2006, she came to Canada and worked several jobs in the GTA before working for the affluent Chanchlani family.
"She came here like everybody else; to make a living and help her family. We just can’t believe it," said Fay Hangdaan, who lives in Toronto and is the cousin of Dulnuan's fiancé, in another report in the Star.
Prior to the killing, Dulnuan mentioned to her friends she feared for her safety.
"There's a second door in the back of the house that leads to the basement where her room is. She told me the last time I saw her that there's a river behind the house, so someone could just pass onto the (property) there, around the gates," said a housekeeper who spoke with Dulnuan the morning she was killed, as quoted in the report.
Dulnuan left behind a two-year-old daughter and a fiancé.
Her remains took three weeks to be repatriated to the Philippines, as the Philippine Consulate in Toronto had said it does not have enough fund to repatriate Dulnuan’s body, and that she was an “unregistered" worker.
Dulnuan’s fellow Filipino workers in Toronta earlier clamored that her killers be sentenced to death, but Canada abolished death penalty in 1976. - with Joseph Lariosa/KBK, GMANews.TV
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