Victim No. 6 tags van robber-rapist

SUSPECTS Rey Diaz (left) and Wilfredo Lorenzo. ERIKA SAULER

Another victim has come forward to pin Wilfredo Lorenzo, who is currently detained by the Quezon City police, on a string of rape and robbery complaints filed mostly by female taxi passengers.

The sixth complainant, “Faith,” whacked and kicked Lorenzo during a confrontation on Thursday when she positively identified him and his recently arrested cohort, Rey Diaz.

According to the police, Faith hailed a taxi cab in Makati City around 2:30 a.m. on April 5 and identified Lorenzo as the driver.

Diaz, who was hiding in the trunk, later came out and replaced Lorenzo in the driver’s seat, Senior Supt. Joselito Esquivel Jr., Quezon City Police District (QCPD) deputy director for operation, told reporters.

Lorenzo took the victim’s cash, ATM card and cell phone and then raped her while Diaz was driving on C-5 Road going to Quezon City.

Supt. Rodelio Marcelo, chief of QCPD Criminal Investigation and Detection Unit (CIDU), said the victim was dumped behind a club near Quezon Avenue after about two hours.

The police withheld information about the taxi cab used by the duo  pending an investigation.

Lorenzo, 36, was arrested on June 13 in Barangay Kaligayahan, Quezon City, after two women accused him and a cohort, Alfie Turado, of robbing and raping them inside a “colorum” van. Their ordeal lasted from 10 p.m. on June 10 until 2 a.m. the following day.

Turado, who was arrested on June 16, was killed the following day inside a police van after he allegedly grabbed the gun of his escort. Before he died, he and Lorenzo had a face-to-face confrontation in the QCPD in which both accused each other of being the mastermind in the June 10 incident.

Two more women surfaced on June 17 to file a robbery complaint against Lorenzo after seeing him on the news. Both said they were robbed in March by Lorenzo who acted alone.

Another woman later went to the QCPD-CIDU and said she was detained and sexually abused for almost a month by Lorenzo—whom she described as an acquaintance—when she was just a teenager in 2003. She added that she gave birth as a result to a child who is now 13 years old.

The police have given alphabetical aliases to Lorenzo’s alleged victims—Annie, Betty, Cris, Dalia, Elena and now, Faith.

According to Esquivel, it appears that Lorenzo has a fetish: He removes the socks of his rape victims and uses these to gag them or tie their hands.

“And the vehicle should be moving. Based on investigation, the motive primarily is robbery to sustain their illegal drug use. Then it turns into rape,” Esquivel said, adding that Diaz would be considered an accessory to the crime in Faith’s case.

Diaz, 46, a taxi driver and native of Iloilo who is now residing in Marilao, Bulacan, was arrested around 1 a.m. on Thursday. He was caught urinating on Sinagtala Street in Barangay Bahay Toro, Quezon City, in a violation of a local ordinance. He yielded a knife when the police frisked him.

Esquivel said Diaz fit the description given by Faith when she first went to QCPD on Saturday to file a complaint against Lorenzo. –Erika Sauler