The enforcement of the Comelec gun ban did not stop a gunman from killing a couple Monday night in Sagay City, Negros Occidental.

The victims, Ronilo Pacheo, 44, and his wife, Amelita, 45, succumbed to multiple gunshot wounds from a lone gunman, with a 9mm pistol, at their residence in Brgy. Bato, Sagay City.

Chief Inspector Gabriel Gutierrez, Sagay police chief, yesterday said the Pacheo couple was outside their home, when the armed suspect opened fire at them, without any reason at all.

Despite their injuries, the couple managed to run and seek refuge inside their home, but were followed by the gunman, who finished them off, by shooting them again.

Seven empty shells and a deformed slug of a 9mm pistol were recovered from the crime scene.

Gutierrez said they are looking at an old grudge as the possible motive for the killing of the Pacheo couple.

Based on the testimonies of three witnesses, he said they were able to come up the possible identity of the gunman, Gutierrez said.

The gunman, who was reported to be wearing a hat and a jacket, casually walked out from the crime scene, and warned one of the witnesses, whom he had spared from harm, not to interfere.

The couple owns a videokee house and a sari-sari store in the place, which is several hundred meters away from the Army’s 62 nd Infantry Battalion headquarters.

Meanwhile, a 23-year-old man arrested for illegal discharge of firearms in Brgy. Kanlandog,Murcia, was charged yesterday for violation of the Comelec gun ban before the Provincial Prosecutor’s Office of Negros Occidental.

The arrest of Marjun Gallano Sunday by Army soldiers yielded a homemade .38 caliber revolver with six ammunition . He is now locked up at the Murcia Police Station Jail.*GPB