Marlon Gamos was a man who lived for his family. As a seaman working in Korea, he endured long months of separation from his wife, Ruby “Bing” Gamos, and their beloved 7-year-old daughter, Shanaya Nicole, all to provide them with a comfortable life in their home in General Trias, Cavite.

In December 2017, just two months before he was scheduled to return home for good, he was happily planning their reunion, buying gifts and dreaming of the moment he would see them again. But a sudden and chilling silence from his wife would be the start of a devastating nightmare that would unravel a secret life and end in an unthinkable tragedy.

In the first week of December, Marlon and Ruby were in frequent contact, excitedly planning for the holidays. Then, on December 8, the calls and messages stopped. Marlon couldn’t reach his wife.

At first, he wasn’t overly concerned; their home was in a secure, gated subdivision, and he assumed she was simply busy with their daughter.

But as the days passed with no word, a knot of dread began to tighten. He asked his sister to check on them, but she too was unable to make contact.

On December 11, nearly four days after the last communication, Marlon’s sister went to the house. She was met with an eerie silence. After getting no response, she asked the subdivision’s security guard to help her open the door.

The moment it opened, they were hit by a horrifying smell. Inside, they made a devastating discovery. The bodies of both Ruby and little Shanaya Nicole were found in a state of decomposition.

Marlon received the soul-crushing news aboard his ship in Korea. His world collapsed. With the help of his employer, he was immediately flown back to the Philippines, but the happy homecoming he had dreamed of was replaced by a grief-stricken visit to a morgue.

The initial investigation by the Scene of the Crime Operatives (SOCO) was puzzling. There were no signs of forced entry, and neighbors reported that the family’s dog had never barked, strongly suggesting that the perpetrator was someone Ruby knew and had willingly let into her home. The motive initially appeared to be robbery, as a television and Ruby’s car were missing.

However, the car was soon found abandoned, and the extreme violence of the crime pointed to a much more personal motive. The autopsy revealed that Ruby’s life had been ended by blunt force trauma and strangulation, and that she had been subjected to a horrific violation before her passing. Her young daughter had also been silenced by strangulation.

The case seemed destined to become a difficult whodunit, but it took a shocking turn just after Christmas. On December 27, a man named Ruel Galvan Kabatingan, tormented by his conscience, surrendered to police in his home province of Eastern Samar. His confession would expose a secret life that Marlon never knew his wife was living.

Kabatingan was Ruby’s high school sweetheart. While Marlon was away at sea, the two had reconnected on social media and rekindled their romance. The affair was not a fleeting one; it was a full-fledged double life.

Investigators discovered that Ruby and Kabatingan had been living together in a secret apartment in Imus, Cavite, just a kilometer away from her family home. Their 7-year-old daughter, Shanaya Nicole, was aware of the relationship and would often stay with them, her playroom set up in the secret apartment.

According to Kabatingan’s confession, the tragedy was born from his own desperation. Ruby, knowing her husband was soon to return for good, had decided to end their affair. Kabatingan, a married man himself who had left his own family for Ruby, could not accept her decision.

In a fit of jealous rage and depression after she fell asleep in her own home on December 8, he took her life. In the most heartbreaking detail of his confession, he claimed that their daughter, Shanaya Nicole, had witnessed the horrific act, and in his panic, he silenced the innocent child as well.

The news of his wife’s secret life was a second, devastating blow to the grieving Marlon Gamos. But in his pain, he found a sliver of resolve. “I forgive her,” he said of his late wife’s infidelity, his focus turning solely to the man who had destroyed his world.

“But I will never forgive him.” Ruel Kabatingan was charged with two counts of murder, leaving two families shattered and a story of a seaman’s dream that ended in the most unimaginable of nightmares.