The Chiong Sisters: The Most Insane Miscarriage of Justice

today's video is brought to you by curiositystream more on them in just a bit hello everybody welcome back to another episode of the casual criminalist as always i am your host simon welcome to the show what happens here one of my writers in this case kevin thank you kevin writes me a script that i've never read before it's called a cold read we're gonna read it together explore the philippines most controversial murder trial the chiong sisters uh kevin pitched this to me via email and i was like kevin this sounds like children are gonna get murdered and he's like that's not that's not the main drift of the story the main drift of the story is apparently the trial and what went wrong with it and all of that stuff and i was like okay because immediately i was like dude please no more killing children i've had enough i it was a while ago now but i remember just recording something i was like i i don't want to do that right now kevin i need a break um but he persuaded me otherwise so yeah we're gonna go into it hopefully it's not gonna be too horrible the world breathes with relief i'm feeling better than i was last week when i think kevin pitched this to me because that was a rough week i think i recorded like three casual criminalists and they were all fairly dark and i was like please i skipped anyway uh i'm gonna read it enough blathering jen afterwards a wonderful video editor uh does the magic with the music and the uh the video obviously [Music] i can't speak for the rest of the world though i suspect the sentiment is quite similar but here in america amazon is seen as an evil corporation that uses dirty tactics to crush small businesses and savagely mistreat its employees forcing warehouse workers to relieve themselves in empty boxes while they're at work because there's simply no time for them to take a bathroom break despite this we still use amazon because what's the alternative going to the mall yeah this is this is something that does bother me it's like obviously i don't like uh having employees have to pee in boxes or whatever allegedly or whatever but also when people complain about this and then i'm like do you shop at amazon and they're like yeah i shop at amazon i really like them to get this [ __ ] together it's like okay why do you shop at amazon well it gets to be faster it's the cheapest and i'm like well how do you think they can do that it's the cons if we really if you were really that bothered by it otherwise you'd stop shopping on amazon and you'd pay more for worse service elsewhere other than that it's just virtue signal isn't it so how about if you shop at amazon you shut your mouth about how amazon uh treat their employees and run their business because you're not even taking the most basic action towards stopping that which is stopping to shop at amazon like this i'm recording this this will go out way later because we're so far ahead on this but ukraine is invaded by russia and all of these companies uh like international companies pull out of russia as you know part of a sanction and some of them do it the early ones probably out of the goodness of their hearts they're like that's how out of the goodness of their hearts do companies ever do that probably not but look mcdonald's they were there for a little bit longer than everyone else and then people were like well i'm just not gonna eat some mcdonald's am i until you pull out of russia and that is consumer action getting a giant corporation to give up nine percent of their global revenue by pulling out of russia because if ten percent of the rest of the world just ten percent are like well i'm not gonna and even i was like i'm not just there's a burger king right next door to the mcdonald's and i'll just eat there mcdonald's because it's not that hard is it how about you pull out of russia and uh what was i talking about yeah consumers take action if you're not happy about something this is uh such a massive round but it does piss me off when people shop at amazon but complain about amazon or any company the mall sucks and their strict policy of requiring pants doesn't vibe with my modern shopping sensibilities with the convenience and ease and on of online shopping malls becoming a relic of the past may very well be in our foreseeable future the narrative was quite a bit different in the 1990s however online shopping barely existed in the general public was still a bit leery of it back then malls were the place to be the variety of stores many could do all of your shopping in one stop teens would go there just to hang out or for employment the elderly would come by every morning to get their daily exercise these days these days malls are becoming umbrellic of a bygone era they were once hustling hubs of commerce and socialization though well for most people the worst thing that could happen at the mall was that the wetzel's pretzels ran out of your favorite dipping sauce sisters marijoy and jack ningxiang were not so lucky their last trip to the mall was the last time that anyone would see either of them alive maybe do we have a conspiracy in today's episode like maybe they're dead oh i like i mean i like that i like the idea that if they've been there that they could still be alive because that's nice the kidnapping mara joy 21 and jaclyn 23 were born to parents dianioso and therma chiong they grew up on the island of cebu in the philippines diony also worked for a trucking company and the girls had part-time jobs working at the mall okay so for some reason they're not children they're young adults um i don't know why i had it in my mind they were children when i was communicating with kevin i think i just briefly looked at the wikipedia page and i don't know maybe misread something on the night of the 16th of july 1997 marijoy and jacqueline had finished their shifts at the ayala mall they were outside the mall in the waiting shed waiting for their ride to arrive was a waiting [ __ ] who waits in a shed when they were late to return home from work selma would send her two sons to retrieve them thinking that the girls must have had trouble getting a ride because it was such a rainy and stormy night and the boys who's giving them a ride they're just like i hope someone comes pick us up just on a whim when the boys arrived at the mall the girls were already gone but they were never to return home according to signed witness statements a white car had pulled up to the waiting shed at 10 pm and two two men forced the girls inside there was a red car trailing this one with five more men in it the white car drove about 14 meters before jaclyn jumped out of it she was chased down and forced back into the car once inside she was elbowed in the chest and marijoy was punched in the stomach the respective blows caused both girls to faint at which point they were handcuffed to one another and packing tape was placed over their mouths simon i know i promise you this episode wasn't going to be too brutal yeah kevin we had a discussion about this so i guess for the next few minutes you should let your mind zone out or just think happy thoughts just trying to think about happy thoughts yeah but then i can't comment and i can't discuss it when we get into the rest of the episode and i can't espouse how much i can't wait for the people who committed this crime to suffer and this is the philippines i got a feeling this is one of those countries where they'll still like hang people for bad crimes which is nice i mean i guess the feeling i say that now and i'm like why are you saying that and then i'll probably read the next few paragraphs and then be like oh yeah that's why good the cars left the mall and headed to a safe house in guadalupe cebu city the girls were brought inside to separate rooms but after about 15 minutes the girls and their seven captors returned to their vehicles marijuana and jack them were again handcuffed together and they headed to the bus terminal where they were able to rent a van and abandon the red carpet they then proceeded south stopping to get some barbecue and tan door rum before arriving at tanawan south of cebu city the group parked their van and white car near ravine and proceeded to enjoy their barbecue and rum as well as smoke some weed growing up in the 1980s i was always warned that marijuana was a gateway drug but no one warned me that it was a gateway to murder then again marijuana uses punishable by life in prison under the in the philippines under the dangerous drugs act of 1972 only that makes that what's that is it the three-strike policy in the u.s where it's like if you commit three minor is this still a thing i can't believe this is still a thing if it is what's going on america uh where if you get caught for three minor crimes they put you in prison for like life or something i mean not like speeding but like i think marijuana possession was one of those i said oh my god so if you get caught with marijuana three times you go to prison for life i'm not sure if that's actually true now i'm saying it it sounds so absurd that surely it can't be true yeah okay i just looked it up real quick and apparently three stokes laws generally mandate a life sentence with the third violation of violent felonies so uh that that makes more sense to me because that is like well uh you know a rud of violent behavior um still i'm not sure that's such a good idea we should just punish people per crime not for like ongoing crimes and obviously if they're arrested a third time for the same crime they've committed twice before it's gonna be a lot easier maybe give them a longer sentence but putting them away for life for three violent crimes seems pretty insane because a violent crime could be punching someone in the face that's a crime it's violent but if i punch three people in the face at different occasions it just means i'm a fighter it doesn't mean i deserve to go to prison for the rest of my life so perhaps they were of the same mindset as a murderer who continues killing on the basis that the penalty is the same for a hundred murders as it is for one so why not insane logic the gang of seven men now to their minds on rum and dangerous drugs pulled jaclyn out of the car and instructed her to dance as they encircled her she was pushed from one end of the circle to the other as the men ripped her clothes while this was happening one of the men in the circle went inside the van that still had marijuana inside he returned 15 minutes later asking who wants next one by one all seven men took turns inside the van raping marijoy um kevin kevin you promised me a lack of horrible stuff and i know you said i had to skip the next few paragraphs but dude she was then carried out of the van and jaclyn was forced back inside there was only time for three of the men to have their way with her when the third man returned marijoy was unceremoniously pushed down into the 150 meter deep ravine the impact from the four would have killed her instantly jaclyn was thrown to the ground and as she tried to get up and run to the road the gang taunted her following her in the van a passing tricycle the most common form of motorized transportation in the philippines due to costing less than two thousand dollars was seen coming down the road so jackson was pulled inside and beaten unconscious what happened to her afterwards is unaccounted for well maybe the tricycle driver thinking that the passengers in the band had been throwing garbage off of the cliff wrote down the license plate number a woman named annie who lived nearby also signed an affidavit stating that she saw the suspicious white car parked by the ravine two days later the decomposing body of a young woman was found at the bottom of the ravine she'd been beaten blindfolded handcuffed and gang raped dionocio and thumb were identified the body was that of their daughter marijoy the chiong seven francisco juan laranga nicknamed paco was a 17 year old dual citizen of spain in the philippines he came from a privileged family and was studying at the center for culinary arts in quezon city some 300 miles from the island of cebu two months after the murders he was approached on campus by armed men in plain clothes claiming to be police officers he called his sister mimi who heroically rushed to the scene and dispatched the officers on the condition that paker would go to cebu the next day and be questioned wait how does his sister why does his sister have such authority over the police what when he arrived in cebu paku was arrested along with six other men who would go on to be known as the chiong seven the other six men arrested were yos were joseman aznar rowan adlawan aka wesley alberto cow aka alan parhak ariel balansang james anthony aka wang wang and james andrew oye aka m almost all of these men came from well-off families and all had records on the juvenile registry for minor altercations paco's record included one not so minor altercation which was one of the reasons he was singled out baker was accused of attempting to abduct a first-year high school student from the university of san colas girls high school the year prior that is not to describe trying to kidnap a child as a not so minor altercation is putting it mildly kevin note that this is all allegedly as there was no arrest or charges brought forth on the matter but there was a letter dated 25th of september 1996 from the parents of the girl to the student affairs office of the high school seems like more should have been done about that maybe the public couldn't have been happier with the arrest i'm happy the surrender they were all seen as thugs from privileged families that the types of people who are generally regarded as acting and perhaps in fact being above the law especially in the case of paco who was seen as the leader of the gang and from the most privileged family so the idea that justice could actually be served was tantalizing to the people of cebu and they anxiously awaited the trial in the hopes that the qiong seven would not simply buy their way out of trouble as wealthy people are always believed to do i mean it's insane it's it will be an insane statement to say like the wealthy people obvi you know don't get away with more crimes obviously they can afford like better lawyers and stuff but are we talking about like bribery here are they going to be able to like ride their way out of prison because if you do like major crimes no matter like what's that um the guy robert durst who was just convicted oh he died did he he died right after not being in prison very long he had like covered or something um he was convicted of those murders and he was a billionaire or at least like hundreds of millions right and it's like yo if you commit murders and stuff you're not that you know you're much less likely to get away with that no matter how good your liars are although robert durst admitted to it onto a hot mic which was insane what a great story the eighth man and the trial of the century the people of the philippines saw this as the trial of the century anxiously awaiting to see if justice could win out over wealth and privilege the trial of the chiong sentence centered primarily on two people the first was peco peco was seen as the leader of the gang and the one who supposedly had the strongest alibi for the crime the prosecution felt that if they could prove his guilt then the other convictions would be trivial likewise the defense felt that if they could defend pago's innocence the prosecution case would fall apart the other sense piece of the trial was co-defendant davidson valiente russia he turned himself in as the eighth member of pecos gang had agreed to testify against the other members he was the prosecution's star witness russia said that he was told to meet the group at the mall at 10 pm for a big happening he assumed this meant that they were just going to party or something but went on to explicitly detail the abductions that began at the mall and ended with the murder at the ravine his testimony lasted for days but peco's lawyers only questioned him on cross-examination for 30 minutes eventually unable to find any reasonable defense peco's lawyers quit the case and he was assigned lawyers from the public defender's office unsurprisingly they did not fare any better wow when your expensive lawyers quit because they're like yeah we're not going to be able to manage this you have to go with the default government lawyer the default government law is just going to be laughs mate you're screwed and you shall remain screwed uh russia's version of events were recreated in a short film that aired on national television after watching the actors who played row and ariel high five each other after pushing marijoy off a cliff the nation knew that these men were guilty and wanted to see them executed what the [ __ ] are you doing national television why are you making a movie about this like i'm all for these guys going to prison or being executed if this actually if they are guilty beyond all of uh beyond all reasonable doubt and i don't know if they have juries in the philippines but even like even if it's a judge system where the judge decides um that is gonna bias the population which is gonna buy us it's just gonna buy us everything you can't make a video of these two guys high-fiving after committing a murder that's insane on the 5th of may 1999 after three months of deliberation cebu regional trial court judge martin acampo finally wrote his decision he declared that all eight defendants were guilty beyond a reasonable doubt bruce europe granted blanket immunity for his role as a star witness while the other seven men were all sentenced to two life sentences the mandatory penalty for murder at the time was the death penalty but acampo ruled that because he was not sure the body found in the ravine was mara joy chong that they could not say for certain that a murder took place wait didn't the parents identify it as mara joy so what the hell the men were instead convicted of two counts of kidnapping in a legal detention dinosio and thermal were furious of course deeming that anything less than death was unsuitable justice also did the judges freaking say that that might not even be marijuana's body and there might have not been a murder is that not somehow important yes that feels important and i feel like judge what are you up to did you not pay attention during this case are you listening to a word i'm saying also i'm with the parents on this one hang these guys this is like i know ongoing debate about my opinions on the death penalty but i mean if i was these parents and this was my kid hang them an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind and i'm like well [ __ ] that and [ __ ] you kill these guys hey guys you've heard me talk about curiosity stream before if you haven't then you're 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because i've got such a big brain ah okay so go to curiositystream.comcriminalist for unlimited access the world's top documentaries and non-fiction titles and for you guys use the promo code criminalist and you'll save 25 percent off which comes to only 14.99 a year i already mentioned like a million times again the code is criminalist address is curiositystream.com criminalist there's a link below for your convenience sign up support the show you won't regret it it's killer ah i get that killer because it's a crime show clever and let's get back to the show context clues [Music] jesus christ where do we even begin with this complete and total show well to understand everything that happened there's some important context to this trial that i've admitted thus far i mentioned that the accused were predominantly from privileged families and that is true the public wanted proof that even the wealthy were not above the law as is often perceived to be the case well they didn't get the death penalty so they got away with that and it seems like through a very bizarre and when something really odd happens in something like when you know a contract goes really strangely to one company rather than another or a judge or a jury make a really bizarre decision the first thing i want to leap to is like hey pay two who threatens to what exactly is going on here because this doesn't seem like a sensible decision and i'm immediately jumping to like what's up with that judge what's that judge up to why did he say that thing about maybe there's not been a murder judgey judge has someone lined your pockets allegedly how convenient the public wants to prove that even the world were not above the law as is often perceived to be the case yes i know simon that's perceived to be the case because it absolutely is the case however the one thing that can see justice or some perverted semblance of it done against a privileged family is an even more privileged family by all accounts the jeongs were not particularly wealthy their daughters were working part-time at a mall after all however they had connections i also i don't know i'm fairly privileged and i want my kids to go and work jobs i'm not just gonna give them money so they don't have to work i think it's good for development people like why are you working at the mall isn't your family rich i'd be like yeah they're rich i'm not i need money are these good character building thelma's sister was the personal secretary to joseph estrada who became president joseph estrada at the beginning of the trial oh that's a connection he was inaugurated on june 30th 1998 also there's the trucking company that dionocio worked for he had actually been the manager of the entire trucking company before leaving that trucking company was owned by peter lim and notorious alleged drug lord that was put on red notice by interpol in march of 2019 and is the subject of an international manhunt holy sh these guys are connected to both the highest level of office and also a very seemingly dangerous criminal i learned about red notices from that uh ryan reynolds and um oh god the woman who paid played uh oh god what's her name the israeli woman and uh the rock such a good laugh it's a netflix movie uh red notice and it's all about inspol this red notice or whatever it's fun but what i learned from that is a red notice from interpol is a serious thing by that means like all the police are looking for you a fun fact that is completely unrelated to the story at hand and definitely couldn't have any bearing on anything is that dionysio was set to testify against his former boss before the congressional committee on dangerous drugs at the time his daughters went missing oh my oh my this guy is brave like you're going to testify against a drug lord i don't want to sound like a coward i mean i do i don't care there's no way if i worked for a drug lord and they were like do you want to testify against him i'd be like what drug lord who's a drug lord i don't know anything about any drug lords also on not because i'm afraid of death i mean i absolutely am because i don't want them murdering my family i've seen sicario [ __ ] that movie i saw it like 10 years ago i still think about it don't testify against drug lords if you have a family or care about your life or just a coward this is especially important for a few reasons the first is peco's attempted arrest on campus while he was terrified and confused his sister mimi was a legend when she arrived on the scene after peco's phone call she immediately noticed that all the men had expired police ids and did not have any sort of warrant for paco so she basically told the multiple armed men to write off even if paco did agree to return to cebu the next day those men were later identified as thugs under the employee of the alleged drug lord oh my god that guy was gonna get killed that's so intense that's why so i was wondering how he he didn't get arrested how he just left because they were fake police oh my lord don't testify against drug lords based on the timing of the girl's disappearances and the reputation of peter lim the red notice guy there is a lot of speculation that the cheong seven were targeted because their families had somehow upset lim one of the major details supporting this theory is that only two of the members of the supposed gang had ever met each other before the trial and none of them had ever met star witness and co-conspirator russia that is if you choose to take the word of a group of now convicted felons peco also claims that he never met marriage or jackman before either though their mother claimed that he had been dating and harassing marijoy but who are you going to believe a convicted murderer or a grieving mother don't answer yet because now that is now that the stage is more properly set is trying to re-examine the trial the mistrial of the century as a quick side note the philippines does not have jury trials or criminal matters are decided by a judge just wanted to clear that one up for our us and uk listeners who may have found themselves wondering about the lack of a jury yeah juries i mean for like a murder in the uk pretty sure it's always going to be a jury trial i know in the u.s you have juries you have juries for like civil crimes which blows it just seems crazy to me like every every like you know someone's suing someone and you have a jury that's what you have judges for it's not like anyone's having their freedom in binge department just have a judge decide it real quick you have lawyers fighting back and forth trying to persuade a jury all of this stuff about like complex civil like uh corporate cri uh corporate um you know civil crimes and all that stuff and like minor crimes in the uk is also just a judge um but i don't know here where i live in czech republic is also just judges there's no juries and i don't know if it was a murder trial i'd i think i'd like a what do they call it like a collection of your peers a group of your peers rather than that one single judge i mean and then appeals judge and stuff deciding your fate that feels pretty intense still a murder conviction must be proven beyond all reasonable doubt that statement is true in the philippines as well so what are some other things that might constitute reasonable doubt well sarses well for starters how about an alibi we're going to blow through most of these pretty quickly because as i previously stated the trial was really all about peco but it's still important to note that other men did have alibis on the night of july the 16th the two you brothers were celebrating their father's 50th birthday all of the party guests placed them at the event until at least 11 30 pm 90 minutes after the abduction of the chiang sisters they did not leave the home until 7am the next day to go to the school that's just testimony of friends and family though so maybe not the most ironclad alibi alberto and ariel were seen at an auto mechanic with alberto's wife and another couple at 7 30 pm the group returned to pick up the car the next morning so there were witnesses to their whereabouts they did not have their car and there was no mention of a big happening or party made jossman and some friends had dinner at his house that night then went to bai disco they met up with some other friends got increasingly drunk and then went to a second bar jossman did not arrive home until his friend dropped him off at 3am i cannot find any information on rowan's alibi so either he didn't have one or it was just more friends and family regardless it all came down to peco pego's case was presented first as he was believed to have the strongest alibi that alibi was that he wasn't even on the island of cebu on the night of the 16th which a pretty bold claim to make and would require some serious proof proof that he absolutely had wait all of these guys seem to have absolutely rock-solid alibis attendance records showed that paco was in attendance at his classes at the center of culinary arts in kaizon city and that he took his midterms on campus the following day he and his friends hung out at the r r bar in katapunan there were photographs taken that night that showed peco in the bar but the judge felt the photos were tampered with because peko was not looking directly at the camera and his chair seemed to be a different color than the others remember this was the late 90s so these weren't exactly easily photoshopped digital pictures they came from a role of film something for sure is going on here and i just want to know what it is um yeah these guys seem to have like watertight alibis the logbook from pecos condominium recorded him as arriving home at 10 15 pm which the security guard attested to the judge felt his entry had been added in afterwards it was written in the uppermost portion of the book sandwiched between two entries recorded at 1005 pm there is no photograph of this log book available so the term sandwich could mean two different things either it could be in small print inserted between two entries or it could be a normal entry and either he or the person after him was off by 10 minutes when they wrote down the time if it's the former then that part is a little peculiar but i don't know that it's beyond a reasonable doubt levels of peculiar also if there's i guess so the logbook was available during the trial or whatever but given that we don't really know much about it i just have to disregard this there's also the matter of sworn affidavits from witnesses all testifying that pako was in kaizon on the night of the murder in total there were 45 sworn statements from classmates friends and teachers attesting to peco's whereabouts on the night in question and all 45 of those people can't be bought and they certainly aren't gonna all like be his best friends if it's family and stuff providing you an alibi instantly let's be suspicious of that alibi but if i was at school and they were asking was this kid there even if i thought that kid was a dick and i didn't like them at all i'd be like yes they were there they're not guilty of murder i don't want them going to prison or being hung out hanged or whatever you want to say like yeah they were there this is crazy these are like rock solid the judge ruled that these statements had no merit and when the defense began calling the witness to stand the judge to the stand the judge cut off their testimony account of there being too many witnesses judge who is paying you he also refused to allow paco to take the stand to defend himself this is not okay speaking of witnesses how about that russia guy it's pretty good wait who's the russia guy it's pretty convenient that 10 months after the crime he voluntarily gave himself up to the police oh the the star witness who got immunity uh against his seven friends in exchange for blanket immunity despite never having been implicated in the crimes at all isn't it funny how the world works sometimes but actually who was davidson russia the media was determined to spread the narrative the chiang 7 being drug addicted gang members and felon the eighth man russia was a drug addicted gang member and felon rusi had served two prison sentences in the united states his confession had not come entirely out of the goodness of his own heart either and i'm not just talking about the author of blanket immunity so he's been given something in exchange for this because you need the blanket immunity because otherwise you're going to go to prison but he must have got something on top of this because otherwise why would he do it all together i mean he could have been threatened he could have been bribed something i'm not sure immediately i'm beginning to put together the pieces on this i'll get the bottom out and it's like okay so the father of one of the of the murdered girl was going to testify against his boss who was a drug lord kingpin dude which don't do and his daughter just happens to get murdered and then there's this cover-up with all these people who seem to have rock-solid alibis and a judge who seems well sketchy i'm like this this this drug lord dudes like what's up with this in a story that was corroborated by other prison inmates who witnessed the events the police had gently and repeatedly coaxed a confession out of russia with their fists oh okay so they didn't bribe him they didn't threaten they just beat the [ __ ] out of him until he agreed to do it allegedly their lit cigarettes delicately caressed his back and their loaded guns were aimed lovingly at his face brucia was given the full vip treatment and showered with this sort of affection from the police until he freely decided of his own volition that he had to do the right thing and confess to his horrible crimes this is so immoral during the trial i mentioned that the prosecution questioned rousseau for days but peco's team of defense lawyers only cross-examined him for 30 minutes what they left out was that judge acampo only allowed them to cross-examine him for 30 minutes brucia gave a very detailed account of the events that happened starting at the mall and ending at the ravine but in his story jaclyn left the ravine with them he never said anything about what happened to her after and the prosecution didn't ask on cross-examination when russia was asked what happened to jack then he fainted but witness or not the show must go on judger campbell heard the brazilians continue and he answered questions on behalf of the unconscious witness this is insanity the judge is answering the questions this is a cank this is a clown court to say that this was an orthodox decision we'll be putting it lightly but judge acampo was apparently a pretty unorthodox kind of guy you know what i like in my judges [ __ ] orthodoxy the entire trial was a carnival it was disorganized and people shouted and spoke out of turn judge acampo either didn't have the energy or the will to keep any semblance of order in his courtroom i'm going to guess that he didn't have the energy as he was occasionally catching a quick nap during the proceedings much like a witness fainting the judge sleeping was not cause enough to pause the trial so hopefully nothing important was presented while he was in dreamland if anyone needs to go to jail is this judge who's an absolute clown so we've talked about the cheong seven's alibis one of the things that can be used to establish reasonable doubt so what about the evidence in the trial surely there must have been a preponderance of evidence tying the accused to the crime right actually there was none aside from ruse's account of events there wasn't any actual physical evidence to tie any of the men allegedly involved to the crime there was marijoy's body but we'll get to that in a moment as the entire prosecution hinged on russia's testimony there's one thing that we need to mention about his story there were witness statements to corroborate rusia's story of what happened that night we mentioned one witness earlier annie who signed a statement saying that she'd heard noise and saw the white car parked by the ravine the thing with this statement though is that she claims it's a complete and total lie and also she's the only one there were like 45 guys in class with this guy not to mention all of the other crazy amounts of alibi evidence annie's account of that night was that she heard some noise or traffic outside but she thought absolutely nothing of it the following day was a market day so it's called people to drive by or transport their livestock after being interviewed by police several times they presented her with an affidavit to sign the document that they presented the poor and uneducated woman was in english which she couldn't read uneducated but not stupid she demanded that the officers translate the letter before she signed it the police were honest men so they agreed to translate the letter for her but only after she signed it they did tell her what the statement actually said but when she argued to them about it being a lie they unsurprisingly weren't interested they got what they came for so off they went this is insane i can't believe how insane this is and that this is a real story if this was fiction i'd be like this is completely unbelievable it would come out after the trial that most of the witness statements were from people who did not understand what they were signing as the subuano speaking witnesses were all-handed statements written in english to sign there were also several statements testifying that seven men had abducted the chiang sisters and the addition of the eighth man as a star witness did not seem to raise any doubt surrounding the veracity of those statements speaking of the police interviewing witnesses they did not interview a single one of the defense's witnesses to try to corroborate any of the accused men's alibis they had met in custody and it's their only job to make arrests not to make correct arrests oh my lord this is mental finally let's talk about marijoy's body maybe a body was found at the bottom of a ravine that part's not up for debate but was the body actually marijoy well did her parents identify her body as didn't we say that we had this discussion earlier that her parents identified the body her parents identified the body as hers and that was the end of it some fingerprints were taken that allegedly matched a prince on a boater id card according to inspector eggwa edgardo lanizo an inspector for the same police force that had allegedly beat a confession out of russia ah i mean coast they gently coaxed him into doing the right thing getting fingerprints from a to cozy decomposing body is difficult and there was a lot of doubt about the authenticity of his claims belma refused to allow any other forensic testing done on the body so the identity of the girl was entirely the word of the parent normally i would say that a parent's verification is a pretty solid way of identifying a body but normally the person in question didn't go missing after one of those parents agreed to testify against an alleged drug lord in a case surrounded by more questions than answers the post-mortem examination did reveal one other crucial piece of evidence that there was a stain on the deceased girl's underwear which testing showed matched paco's dna and only pecos dna hey to remind you simon joy was allegedly raped by seven men and paco is neither the first nor the last in the order russia gay with seven guys it's definitely possible that one of them is sterile four of them there's an outside chance but six i'd like to see that happen um well hang on if he did rape her how could he be in the on the other island or whatever at the same time so again i think either all the people are wrong i mean this is or they this is very strange it's either made up or maybe he assaulted her or they had sex because weren't weren't they dating or something she he said that their parents said they were harassing and dating which was a weird phrase and now i'm thinking back on it so maybe that's how that happened but this is very strange the sample that was tested did show peco sperm but there was only one sperm cell and no none for anyone else how can the prosecution claim that the girl was repeatedly raped yet there is only a single sperm cell as evidence also of note is that the forensic expert who tested the sample admitted he was not wearing gloves at the time for a scientist i'd expect a little bit more care to be taken yeah how about as a forensics person wear some [ __ ] gloves all that supposed forensic evidence of which there was honestly very little was handled extremely poorly dna samples were handled without gloves dubious fingerprinting and all of the girl's clothing had just been shoved together into a single plastic bag the defense quite reasonably wanted all of the forensics to be tested again due to the questions and doubt surrounding this handling of evidence judge acampo denied this request because of course he did um ruling that proof of the deceased girl's identity was irrelevant i mentioned earlier that the defense lawyers quit the case because they were unable to provide any sort of reasonable defense and they did now you know they were unable to provide a defense not because the accused men were so extraordinarily guilty but because exculpatory evidence like an airtight alibi was thrown out by the judge while questions of who this girl they found in the ravine actually was and if the qiong sisters were even raped or murdered at all was ignored as irrelevant wow that's crazy so those lawyers didn't leave they were just like we can't work in the system this is crazy the judge clearly biased it's insane we quit poor client though jesus when the lawyers announced they would withdraw from the case on the basis that judge acampo was not running a fair trial he became furious how dare these six high paid lawyers call in to question the integrity of a judge whose decision-making and nap schedule are questionable at best utterly incense judge ocampo threw the lawyers in jail for condemnative court and assigned lawyers from the public offender's office yes in the philippines they call it the public offender's office not the public defender's office despite also having the alleged stance of innocent until proven guilty i have to say when i saw public offenders earlier i just assumed it was a typo from kevin so i reread it as public defenders but wow oh and these new public lawyers better hurry up and get to court because they were expected to continue with the trial the very same day this is absolute madness this is absolute madness ultimately when it came time for the ruling judge acampo determined that it could not be proven that peco wasn't in cebu on the night the cheong sisters disappeared a statement that was only made true by the judge throwing out all the proof that peko wasn't in cebu that night there were four flights to cebu on the night in question that peco could have theoretically taken if he wasn't busy being photographed at a bar and even though there is no record from the airlines of him on any of those flights and representatives from the airlines testified that no one saw him that wasn't good enough the fact that there was evidence peco flew to cebu the night after the murder indicating that there would have also been evidence if he had flown there the night before was deemed irrelevant this seems like the judge it's just working completely the other way around this seems like guilty until innocent beyond all reasonable doubt and i would say they even have enough evidence here for innocent beyond all reasonable doubt like i don't think right now in this story there's any anything in my mind that says this guy's guilty anything maybe a little but there is we are so far from reasonable doubt we are so far beyond that i'd say the chances of this guy being guilty are tiny the aftermath following a job well done all of the prosecutors and police involved in the case were given promotions brilliant you may now be wondering how judge acampo could live with himself after running such a sham of a trial well good news he couldn't on the 7th of october 1999 five months after the end of the trial hotel staff found martin ocampo dead at his room at the waterfront hotel there was a suicide note beside him and his wrists and ankles had been slashed along with a gunshot wound to his temple immediately the national bureau of investigation open probed into this event as neither they nor the police believed this was a suicide there was doubt as to whether the handwriting was really his and the method seems more than a bit excessive for a suicide attempt why go through the trouble of slitting your wrists and ankles and then just shoot yourself afterwards a camper had been receiving countless death threats from citizens angry over the verdict in the case of the qiong seven how could this judge have sentenced these seven men to life in prison when clearly they deserve the death penalty oh no everyone's been terribly misled the general public was outraged at such a lenient sentence eventually the death was ruled a suicide president estrada family friend of thelma jung echoed the public sentiment stating that his death is a big loss although i would say that his decision since it was rape with murder should have been a death sentence it's important to remember that at this point in time the public was not yet aware of what a ridiculous joke the trial had been it's also important to note that president estrada would resign a little more than a year after this event following charges of gross corruption upon leaving office he would be tried in court and sentenced to permanent imprisonment whoa holy sh i had no idea they sent the ex-president to prison for life fair enough i can't believe i don't know this that's wild though he must have been crazy corrupt despite the name it's not so much permanent as it is exactly 40 years but unlike life imprisonment there is no chance of parole or pardon until at least 30 years have been served no pardons what if the person decides that he's innocent that's mad despite his blanket immunity in the case russia was still imprisoned that the place he had given his completely voluntary confession for other unrelated crimes therma chiong referred to him in the press as a gift from god given that his testimony was the prosecution's entire case she was seen visiting him multiple times in prison and even brought him a cake on his birthday i understand how important his testimony was but maybe don't bring a birthday cake to someone who claimed an open court to have raped your daughter i'm not a mental health professional and i can't speak to how normal a reaction something like this might be so i asked one of my friends who is and their response was and i quote here to the no thelma you are suspicious a f oh my god are you ever leading up to the trial pako had considered fleeing the country as a dual citizen citizen of spain it would have been extremely easy for the family to pack up and go but they all felt it was best if they stayed to clear his name at trial oopsie daisy given this disgusting miscarriage of justice there was only one logical step that the family could take next the appeal no one was happy with the outcome of the trial and everyone involved appealed the decision the convicted men naturally appealed on the ground that their constitutional rights had been violated given the unfair nature of the trial and that none of them were allowed to speak in their own defense it took five long years of waiting but finally the supreme court made its ruling on february the 3rd 2004 the appeal was won six of the seven men would be sentenced to death oh no it was one by the prosecution oh good lord the other would remain in prison on two life sentences because he was a minor at the time the crimes were committed oh and when i said the appeal was one i meant the chiang's appeal to upgrade the absurdly lenient sentence the supreme court rejected the appeals of the convicted convicted men oh no by this point russia recanted his testimony saying that the police had tortured him to confess showing the bruises they inflicted upon him the supreme court ruled that they could not throw his testimony out because there were other witnesses that corroborated parts of the story even if those witness statements were signed by people who did not understand anything that was written on the english documents they signed to further corroborate russia's story were paid for their testimony but i'm sure that's as immaterial as all the other evidence in this case apparently so because this system is rigged against these people against the the defendants the court decision read these cases involved the kidnapping and illegal detention of a college beauty and her comely and courageous sister an intriguing tale of rebel dre and gang rape was followed by the murder of the beauty queen this is a what are you what are you writing i understand that judicial decisions are frequently overly editorialized and typically focused but typically focus on the character of the parties involved and the significance of the evidence not on how hot the victims were it's time for another fun fact that is unrelated to this case and couldn't possibly have anything to do with anything one of thelma's relatives was supreme court chief justice hilario david it sure is a small world he allegedly took no part in this decision a statement that i absolutely believe considering how dutifully and above board everything else in this investigation and trial was [Music] allegedly give up tomorrow [Music] after the initial trial the general public was out for blood they felt the convicted men needed to be executed and that judge acampo failed to do his judge only failed to do his job by only giving them life in prison shockingly when the new verdict was released in 2004 the country was flooded by a massive wave of support for the young men more and more information had come out on the case the trial and the incomprehensibly massive amount of corruption in the legal system pago's family plead their case to spain and amnesty international activists collected signatures on paco's behalf and brought a petition signed by nearly 300 000 spanish citizens the philippines embassy in spain enlarged it in a last-ditch effort pecos lawyers real ones not the ones from the public vendor's office submitted his case the united nations commission on human rights the u.n commission called for his release and the spanish government requested clemency president gloria arroyo not a family friend of the cheong's or person who was convicted on corruption charges promised that peco's life would be spared in a shocking turn of events a politician kept a promise and president arroyo abolished the death penalty in the philippines in june 2006 effective retroactively the chong seven were not free men but they were no longer condemned to death excellent peco's family in spain worked alongside the group fair trials international a group dedicated to working on behalf of people who face a miscarriage of justice in the country other than their own it took 12 long years in prison but in september of 2009 peco was finally going to be returned to his home country of spain thelma tried her hardest to prevent the transfer but it was one woman against the world perhaps she could have succeeded if she dedicated more time to this endeavor and less to bringing presents and birthday cakes to her daughter's supposed rapist once back in his home country paco was immediately sent to prison what did you expect they said he could come home not that he was pardoned peco's family felt this was just the first step in finally seeing their son's freedom and it very well could have been yeah also i'd rather be like i don't know i don't know philippine prisons in particular but like asian prisons they just seem like hell holes and i'm sure spanish prison has no picnic but tell you where i'd rather be in prison europe rather than asia wise choice let's go views the mountains down to the lake and it very well could have been the spanish prison review board agreed to recommend peco for parole so they could continue his life out of jail but there was just one condition he had to admit his guilt his guilt to a crime that by literally all accounts except for davidson russia's it would have been impossible to commit as he was 300 miles away from the island of cebu needless to say peco refused and is still serving his life sentence in spanish prison i have a feeling simon and i might disagree on this one but i get it you get that offer two or three months into your prison sentence and sure you'll say whatever they want you here to get whatever they want to hear to get out of hell as fast as possible prison's a scary place but after already surviving 12 years in jail for a crime you didn't commit at that point i really think walking out a free man would not seem nearly important as walking out an innocent man nah kevin i kind of get it like jesus christ this is a can you that decision is so intense but when was this this was like i'm sorry 2009 so around 2009 something like that so he's still been in prison for another 12 years after that he's been in prison for like a quarter of a century this is madness absolute madness public opinion has also continued to lean further towards the side of paco and the qiong-7 while the case was an immensely important event even in the philippines it was largely unknown across the world that changed in 2011 when american director michael collins premiered his documentary give up tomorrow at the tribeca film festival the film would go on to screen at 75 festivals in over 40 countries and win 18 major awards as well as receiving a theatrical release in spain give up tomorrow centered around peko and his family and showcased the ridiculously corrupt nature of the story that we've disclosed today the film's title comes from something that peco says in an interview related to the possibility of committing suicide in prison i always tell my co-inmates if you want to give up which is normal if you want to give up give up tomorrow when tomorrow comes then i'll give up tomorrow tomorrow comes i'll give up tomorrow selma cheong who at this point i think we can all say is an unrelenting [ __ ] was once again outraged that this movie could exist so she decided to fight fire with fire thelma commissioned her own movie jacqueline comes home to be made from the perspective of her daughters rather than the alleged murderers her take was a true revisionist history with most of the movie centering around what all form violent people the cheong's heaven were but not david sinrucia he was portrayed as a kind person who's conscious left him no choice but to come forward and confess the guilt of himself and his friends jaclyn comes home was released in 2018 to much less acclaim than give up tomorrow maybe it is maybe it was because the movie was blatant propaganda maybe it was because it was revisionist history or maybe it's because it features a scene where therma cheong has a conversation with god not a prayer oh no no no a dialogue six years after roe's arrival in spain faker was downgraded to a third degree felon the classification for the least dangerous criminals this allows him certain privileges such as leaving the prison to go to school and work he continued his culinary studies and has a part-time job as a chef in 2019 three members of the jung-7 were released from prison in the philippines on the good conduct time allowance law thelma threw a fit at which point it was announced that their release was a mistake and they were to turn themselves back into the authorities president rodrigo duerte held a press conference stating an ultimatum the three minute 15 days to surrender themselves or else the public could hunt them down at a price of 1 million pesos roughly 20 thousand dollars per head dead or alive oh my god duerte he's the one who throws people out of helicopters right allegedly that seems that dude dude as expected the murren's men surrendered themselves back to custody i miss president arroyo she was way cooler yes yes i've got a rule for you simon when is a murder not a murder when the alleged victim is alive and well in canada well that's the theory anyway we'd give up tomorrow reigniting interest in the case and bringing it to the world's attention internet sleuths immediately got to work if both girls were murdered there should be a report of a second body somewhere or if jaclyn was kidnapped but alive perhaps there would be evidence of a whereabouts somewhere in the world the evidence people found came from the most shocking source thelma cheong's facebook page in 2017 now deleted facebook posts from a family wedding in canada showed two women who people felt looked exactly like jacqueline and marijoy when people caught wind of this two users who claimed to be friends of thelma said the girls were 100 alive and well there are innumerable photos of the two women believed to be jacked in amerijoy and have to admit the resemblance is uncanny i'm looking at these photos jen i'm sure we'll put them on the screen now and i mean i'm not very good at this but there's definitely a super resemblance in this image mara joy is on the left and jacqueline is on the right the official story is the women and their the official story is the women are their younger sister debbie on the right and their brother's wife on the lair left this is the official story that has been presented but many people are not buying that explanation at all there are many many more images of their modern selves available even if the family has tried to remove them all from the internet which is suspicious in and of itself yes something rather notable is that at the wedding of allegedly debbie alleged drug lord peter lin and his family were in attendance i guess lim and the chiongs were somehow able to patch things up despite the whole testifying and stewing court mess they almost got into it's nice to see old friends reconnect and that's never at all suspicious it would be easy to dismiss these claims from western internet detectives on the basis that they're not the same race and are falling victim to the they all look the same to me trope an actual psychological phenomena every person is victim to low to varying degrees fortunately a number of filipino people chimed in on the subject as well a very very large number of filipino people i can i can't say with any degree of certainty that there's a consensus among them on whether these whether these absolutely look like missing girls or not but the percentage of filipinos claiming that these pictures are clearly marijuana jaclyn is an order of magnitude higher than what you would expect from a run-of-the-mill conspiracy theory the theory that the qiong sisters are alive and well in canada has yet to either be proven or disproven to many people the debate is once again thialmachong versus a preponderance of evidence but without the women coming forward and admitting it i'm sure there's not i'm not sure there's anything that can be done for their sakes it would be nice to think that these two women both married with families are the jung sisters and they're alive and well but for the sakes of the qiong7 luckily this is the casual criminals it's not our job to solve deep moral dilemmas like this one this is such an intense episode like i don't know i'm pretty sure that those guys are innocent the weight of evidence and the joke of a court that was there that was their courtroom is was just mad it's extremely hard to remain neutral in a case as controversial as this and it's clearly obvious but i didn't even try to if you disagree with my assessment and think that these men deserve to die well i hope you burn in hell but be sure to get in the comments let me know right at the beginning things weren't adding up two girls disappeared from a mall this happened as the girl's father was set to testify against an alleged drug lord and immediately after they disappeared he chose not to testify originally the story was that seven men had kidnapped these girls then when it was convenient it suddenly became eight men the eighth man was a drug-addled convict who was beaten into a confession that he later recounted at the trial prosecution witnesses were paid to speak and defense witnesses were not allowed to testify nor were the defendants themselves the judge when he was awake kept no semblance of order in his courtroom he testified on behalf of a faint fainted witness and imprisoned the defense attorneys for very accurately insulting his integrity and the integrity of the trial a few months after the trial he was found dead in a hotel room in an apparent suicide the evidence presented in court beyond the coerced confession was basically non-existent what little forensic analysis was done was grossly mishandled and alibis were ignored from start to finish the trial was a complete and total disaster and a miscarriage of justice one theory that circulates and the one that i find by far the most likely is this the jiong sisters were kidnapped by peter lim's hired goons to keep de dionizio from testifying when a jane doe was found at the bottom of the ravine it was seen as an opportunity the chiongs identified her as their daughter then refused any testing on her now that the girl's disappearance could be claimed as a murder corrupt police officers were free to round up children of lim's enemies with juvenile records to teach the families a lesson we already know as a fact that the men that came to arrest peco were in fact limbs goons goons with expired police badges and i will just say that this is all kevin's speculation allegedly um what he thinks might have happened and to that i certainly have absolutely no comment with the seven men arrested they needed to build a case against them since there was fortunately no evidence to prove what actually happened to the jeongs or the girl in the ravine or at least no evidence about the girl in the ravine that wasn't mishandled and destroyed they just needed the police to beat a confession out of some low-life criminal that was already behind bars judge acampo was then paid off to ensure a proper verdict allegedly kevin's opinion though he sentenced the chiong seven to life imprisonment instead of death after the trial he either committed suicide out of guilt was killed as punishment for not giving a death sentence or was simply killed to tie up loose ends with that matter resolved and with thelma's relative as chief justice of the supreme court to ensure the appeal would result in the death penalty they sought marijuana and jackson were free to begin a new life in canada and the chiongs and peter lim could be friends again now that they had proven themselves useful and trustworthy once more on the surface that would read like an absurd conspiracy theory but with all the facts that are available about just how mismanaged the trial was and how corrupt the police were not to mention family offend president estrada it becomes disturbingly realistic i mean there's a lot you just draw your own opinion listener that's that's all i'll say hopefully someday the complete truth about this case will come out so we can know for sure what happened and justice can be done properly until then i'll leave you with paco's own words i'd rather have the death penalty again that admit a crime i didn't do this has been a dark episode and a weird episode and are we having like corruption doesn't come up as much as i'd think on casual criminalist and this sure is an interesting example and i know how i feel about this you can draw your own opinion i can probably guess what it was i mean kevin let us know his opinion pretty clearly um thank you for being here thank you for listening or watching however you get the show if you are enjoying listening to it please do leave a review podcast reviews make a big difference i like to see them come in if you're on youtube uh why not subscribe best of all maybe you'll go back and watch an old casual criminalist right now that actually is more than subscribing more than liking if you go back in your video feed right now and find an old cc a cash cream that you haven't listened to and or watched and watched all of that as well that is the most helpful thing algorithmically for getting the show in front of more people fascinating right and i'll see you in the next episode [Music] you

Channel: The Casual Criminalist

Views: 222,520

Keywords: true crime

Id: LyWbJNxjF6c

Length: 62min 36sec (3756 seconds)

Published: Tue May 24 2022