dahlia murders

Background

In 1961 (some say 1957), 28-year-old Lucila Lalu came to Manila from Candaba, Pampanga, seeking a better life. She worked as a waitress at a small bar and accumulated some capital. Within a few years, she acquired two flourishing businesses: the Pagoda Soda Fountain, a nightclub on Rizal Avenue, and Lucy’s House of Beauty, a beauty parlour on Mayhaligue Street, Santa Cruz, Manila.

At the time of her death, she led a complicated social life. She was:-

•  the estranged common-law wife of a policeman, Aniano de Vera;
• the full-time lover of Florante Relos, a waiter at the Pagoda Soda Fountain; the part-time lover of an unnamed executive of a printing firm; and
• the occasional lover of Jose Luis Santiano, a 28-year-old dental student who rented one of the rooms above the beauty parlour. 

The Crime

On 29 May 1967, a Council worker found severed legs wrapped in a newspaper, dated 14 May, in a trash can on Malabon Street near Rizal Avenue, Santa Cruz, a short distance from the Pagoda Soda Fountain. The legs were severed neatly into four parts at the knee and hip joints.

Pablo Besar, the garbage collector who found the limbs, said they were very cold to the touch and appeared to come from a freezer.

A day later, her headless torso was found next to Epifanio De Los Santos Avenue (EDSA) in front of the seminary (some say a vacant lot) near the Guadalupe Bridge. The killer had wrapped the torso in a newspaper dated 23 May. The authorities never recovered her head. 

Police identified the body from a fingerprint match. Lucila Lalu y Tolentino had provided her fingerprints when she submitted her waitress application. 

Lucila died late on the evening of 28 May 1967 or the morning of 29 May 1967, according to the official post-mortem. She was one month pregnant at the time of her death. 

The killing of Lucila Lalu is called the Jigsaw Murder in the foreign media, although most Filipinos know Lucila as the Chop-Chop Lady.

The Investigation

The police immediately arrested Relos, their prime suspect. 

He said he was drinking with two men from around 6 o’clock on the night of 28 May until 4 o’clock the following morning. The police eliminated Relos as a suspect when his two friends confirmed his alibi.

Then the police turned their attention to Lucila’s estranged common-law husband, who had a stronger motive for killing her; he had threatened her and Relos after discovering their affair. The police investigation failed to find any hard evidence against Aniano de Vera. However, the police considered him a viable suspect, and the press suggested law enforcement was about to arrest him for the murder.

Based on the nature of the crime, the police inferred several things about the killer:-

• from the state of Lucila’s corpse, they concluded the killer was skilled in the use of knives, such as a butcher, a surgeon or, at the very least, a pre-med student;
• he probably owned a car and a freezer, i.e. he was a wealthy man; and
• the murderer was intelligent, methodical, and possibly a professional.

On 15 June 1967, Jose Luis Santiano, a 28-year-old dental student who rented one of the rooms above the beauty parlour, confessed to Sgt. Ildefonso Labao.

He claimed that around 11.30 pm on 28 May, Lalu tried to seduce him and that when he refused, she threatened to create a scandal. While rejecting her advances, Santiano claimed he had a ‘ mental blackout’ and accidentally strangled her to death. Then, Santiano chopped up her body and stored it under his bed until it could be dumped. He said he threw her head in a creek near Sct. Albano, Quezon City, and he used paper bags and boxes to transport the various body parts around the city. Santiano said he used public transport, including jeepneys, a taxi, and a bus, to dispose of Lalu’s remains.

According to newspaper reports, the police didn’t inspect Santiano’s room during their initial investigation because they believed ‘it was not important’ even though he was under surveillance. 

When the police finally checked Santiano’s room, they found bloodstains on the floor and other  ‘evidence’ including a kitchen knife, a razor blade and a pair of stockings. Further, they found someone had forced open the door to his apartment at some stage. 

The police, who had bungled the case initially, were removed, and the NBI investigated the matter. 

A few days later, Santiano retracted his confession. In his second statement, he claimed he witnessed Lalu’s murder by three men. One held him at gunpoint while the other two strangled Lalu. A fourth man came to his room the morning after the murder and planted the blood and other evidence. He said he received notes, reminding him to keep quiet about the murder.

Dr. Nora L. Ebio, a ‘mystery witness,’ testified that Labao coerced Santiano into confessing to the crime. 

The Lalu chop-chop murder remains an open case, although the police still insist Jose Luis participated in the killing.  Perhaps, but Santiano suffered head injuries in a bomb blast in the 1950s, and neither of his statements to the police is credible.

George Hodel

In another surprising twist, Most Evil, a book written by Steve Hodel, claims Dr. George Hodel, Steve Hodel’s father, killed Lucila Lalu.

George Hodel had the skill to perform a neat dissection of Lalu’s body and was wealthy enough to own a car and a freezer. 

Most Evil contains several inaccuracies, however. According to the local press, Lucila’s torso was found next to Epifanio De Los Santos Avenue (EDSA), ‘in front of the seminary,’ i.e. near the Guadalupe Foot Bridge. Most Evil asserts Lalu’s headless torso was located between EDSA and Zodiac Street, Makati. That is incorrect: Zodiac Street is about half a kilometre from the Guadeloupe Foot Bridge, although it does run parallel to Epifanio De Los Santos Avenue. 

Lucila’s story is strange, no matter how you look at it. Steve Hodel is probably correct when he says his father committed the murder. If Lucila died on the morning of the 29th of May 1967, she died on the 149th day of 1967 and 216 days before the end of the year. The Lipstick Murders began on the 156th day of 1945 and ended with the murder of Suzanne Degnan on the 7th of January 1946 – 216 days later. Lucila’s murder was a one-off and occurred 216 days before the year’s end, rather than with another murder.  Lucila’s timetable is the Lipstick Murders’ timetable, advanced seven days.