On the morning of April 26, 2016, the quiet corridors of a Baguio City hotel became a grim crime scene. Inside a locked room, housekeeping staff discovered the bodies of three people: a married couple from La Union, Ramon and Ella Abasolo, and a 31-year-old call center agent from Baguio, Maricar Soriano.

The investigation would quickly point to one man, captured on hotel CCTV: Maricar’s husband, Dino Soriano, a 32-year-old logistics worker and by all accounts, a responsible and dedicated family man. The case would unravel a dark and tragic story of a couple’s foray into the “wife-swapping” lifestyle, a risky adventure that ended in a devastating crime of passion.

To their neighbors and friends, Dino and Maricar Soriano had a perfectly normal life. They had been together for nearly a decade, shared an apartment, and were raising their beloved son, Gio. But behind closed doors, their relationship was fraying. In late 2015, Maricar, feeling bored and unfulfilled with the routine of her night-shift job and domestic life, discovered a private online community for couples interested in “swinging.” Intrigued, she presented the idea to her husband.

Dino was initially horrified and angry. But as Maricar grew colder and more distant, his fear of losing her and breaking up his family led him to make a fateful decision. He reluctantly agreed to try it, hoping this “adventure” would bring back the spice their marriage had lost.

In February 2016, they drove to a hotel in Baguio for their first encounter with Ramon and Ella Abasolo, a couple they had met online. The experience was a disaster for Dino. While Maricar seemed thrilled and adventurous, Dino was consumed by a quiet, gut-wrenching jealousy as he watched his wife with another man.

For him, the night was not an act of liberation but one of profound emasculation. He told Maricar he never wanted to do it again, and she seemed to agree.

In the weeks that followed, however, their marriage deteriorated further. A wall of silence grew between them. Maricar started coming home late, offering a string of flimsy excuses—overtime, team dinners, nights out with friends. Though he had no concrete proof, Dino’s heart and mind were filled with a gnawing suspicion that his wife was continuing the liaisons without him.

His worst fears were confirmed on a Friday afternoon in April. After finishing his work, Dino was on his motorcycle when he spotted Maricar getting into a taxi. On instinct, he followed. The taxi led him to another hotel, where he watched in disbelief as Ramon and Ella Abasolo arrived and greeted his wife with familiar laughter.

Devastated, Dino booked a room in the same hotel. For hours, he sat in the dark, staring at a photo of his family, a knife he carried for protection on his delivery routes in his hand.

Late that night, he walked to their room and knocked. Ramon, wearing only a towel, opened the door. Without a word, Dino lunged, and the night exploded into violence. When the commotion was over, all three people in the room—Ramon, Ella, and his own wife, Maricar—were dead.

After three weeks on the run, Dino Soriano surrendered to the police and made a full confession. He did not ask for sympathy, only that his son, Gio, would be cared for. The case seemed straightforward, a clear-cut triple homicide destined for a life sentence. But the court saw it differently.

In a controversial verdict, the judge ruled that Dino had acted in a “crime of passion,” citing the immense psychological distress and provocation he had endured. Instead of life in prison, he was sentenced to just 10 years.

After serving nearly six years, Dino was released in 2022 under the Good Conduct Time Allowance law. He has since been reunited with his son, who had been in the care of his maternal grandmother. He now works a quiet job as a mechanic, slowly rebuilding a life from the ashes of the tragedy he created.

His story serves as a devastating cautionary tale about the unpredictable and dangerous currents that run beneath the surface of a relationship, and how a desperate search for excitement can lead to irreversible heartbreak.