Roan Jalen Lamparas, a 23-year-old teacher, and her 20-year-old boyfriend, engineering student Jade Andrey Bestudio, were a young couple in love with a future full of promise. Their two-year relationship was a source of joy for their families in Calbayog City, Samar. But on the night of June 13, 2022, their bright future was brutally and senselessly extinguished. A random roadside robbery escalated into a horrific double murder for one simple, tragic reason: one of the victims recognized a familiar face among their attackers.

The night began with a simple dinner. After finishing her work at Calbayog City National High School, Roan met up with some co-teachers. Later, Jade picked her up, and the couple went to a samgyeopsal restaurant to join another group of friends. Around 8:00 PM, they said their goodbyes, and Jade started the journey to take Roan home on his motorcycle. They never made it.

When neither Roan nor Jade returned home that night and their phones became unreachable, their families were thrown into a state of panic. The next morning, they reported the couple missing to the police. The search ended in the most devastating way possible. Around 10:30 AM on June 14, Jade’s body was found in a drainage canal.

He had been shot in the head, and his motorcycle and personal belongings were gone. Hours later, the second grim discovery was made: Roan’s body was found in a grassy area eight kilometers away. She too had been shot in the head, and the evidence indicated she had been a victim of a terrible assault.

The police, faced with what appeared to be a brutal robbery with homicide, launched a hot pursuit operation. The case broke open thanks to a combination of CCTV evidence, witness accounts, and, most crucially, a guilty conscience. Investigators discovered footage of two motorcycles, one carrying three people, including a woman who appeared to be unconscious. Witnesses on the street corroborated this, identifying the woman as Roan.

The major breakthrough, however, came when a 15-year-old boy, accompanied by his mother, walked into the police station and surrendered. The teen, identified only as “Janjan,” confessed his involvement in the crime and laid bare the horrific timeline of events.

According to Janjan’s chilling confession, he and two accomplices, Jericho “Chokoy” Pahardo and Glenn “Baculpo,” were riding together on a motorcycle when they spotted Roan and Jade talking on the side of the diversion road. Glenn pulled out a gun and declared a holdup. The couple was compliant, ready to give up their valuables. But in that tense moment, a fatal recognition occurred. Jade looked at the 15-year-old Janjan and realized they were from the same barangay. He knew who he was.

The robbers panicked. The ringleader, Glenn, reportedly declared, “This is a problem, we’ve been recognized.” With that, he shot Jade in the head, eliminating him as a witness. As a terrified Roan cried over her boyfriend’s body, she was forced at gunpoint onto the robbers’ motorcycle.

The men took both her and Jade’s motorcycle, which Janjan drove until it broke down. They abandoned it and all four rode on one motorcycle to a dark, secluded area. There, Glenn assaulted and killed the helpless teacher.

Based on the confession, police arrested Jericho and Glenn, both of whom, it was discovered, already had outstanding warrants for previous robbery cases—a detail that sparked public outrage over the police’s failure to apprehend them sooner. The case against the three is now considered “airtight,” with DNA, ballistics, and fingerprint evidence supporting the 15-year-old’s testimony.

The story of Roan and Jade is a heartbreaking testament to the senselessness of violence, a tragedy where two promising lives were snuffed out over a few valuables and the deadly misfortune of a familiar face in the dark.