so why did the police behave so badly when they found out about ted failon’s wife trina? i think because they were mad as hell that the shooting had not been immediately reported by the family or the hospital or their spies. mahigit tatlong oras na ang nakalipas nang malaman nilang itinakbo ni ted sa ospital ang duguang si trina. ibig sabihin, walang nag-tip sa pulis, they’re so out of the loop, ano ba yan. siyempre, napahiya sila, and they took it out on ted and trina’s sibs and the househelp.
so why were the police so unbelieving that it was a suicide, preferring to treat everyone as a suspect? because the crime scene had been tampered with by the time they were notified. this is where ted has some explaining to do. according to reports he was in the hospital for an hour or so and then he went home, i suppose, to be there for the young daughter karisma. so had the househelp cleaned up na the bathroom by the time he got home? or did he himself give instructions to clean up, to spare the daughter, thinking that since it was a suicide, no crime had been committed, the house was not a crime scene?
whatever actually happened, those were huge mistakes on ted’s part, not notifying the police immediately and not instructing the househelp to stay away from the bathroom (at the very least). was it obstruction of justice? it would seem so, but not for reasons of guilt, rather for the sake of the daughter, which should count for something.
for now i don’t believe ted killed his wife. but i can believe that trina took her own life.
i have a friend whose wife committed suicide a couple of years ago. it was also over huge money problems that she wouldn’t share with her husband, she was supposed to know what she was doing. she also locked herself in the bathroom then slit her throat and stabbed herself several times in the chest. it was also the husband who found her, and who removed the knife that was still buried in her chest so he became the prime suspect and was brought to court.
my friends and i were shocked and distressed. knowing the husband as we did, we couldn’t believe he could have been so vile and violent. on the other hand, knowing his wife as we did, we couldn’t believe that the situation was so hopeless, or that she had no other way out but to die, and so violently. in the end the forensic evidence of suicide was convincing; the court ruled that the wounds were self-inflicted, my friend was acquitted and finally allowed to grieve in peace and start over with the kids.
this trina etong case brings it all back. and only now do i see how much worse it could have been for my friend and his family had he or his wife been a public figure. as neither was, the media were only mildly interested, and the police were coldly professional had no axe to grind. it helped too that my friend got himself very good lawyers.