For Mark Morante, an Overseas Filipino Worker (OFW) in the United States, video calls were his lifeline. They were the precious moments that bridged the thousands of miles separating him from his beloved family in San Quintin, Pangasinan: his partner, Crysteline Ogako, and their two bright and happy children, 10-year-old Ashley and 6-year-old Jacob.

He endured the loneliness and hardship of working abroad for one simple reason: to build them a better future. But in April 2022, that lifeline went silent.

For two days, his calls went unanswered and his messages were left unread. A knot of dread tightening in his stomach, he asked his mother-in-law, Nancy, to check on them. The discovery that followed would unravel a horrific family tragedy born from a secret resentment.

When Nancy’s brother, Adonis, arrived at the family’s home within their compound, he was met with an eerie quiet. The gate was slightly ajar. As he called out their names with no reply, he walked to the back of the house and saw something that made his blood run cold: drops of blood on the ground. He immediately called for help.

When police and a distraught Nancy entered the home, they were met with a scene of unimaginable horror. The house was in disarray, the floor stained with blood. The body of little Jacob was found just outside a bedroom.

Inside, they found his sister, Ashley, and their mother, Crysteline, both of whom had also been subjected to a brutal and violent attack. The forensic team would later confirm that the family had been gone for approximately two days. Crysteline had sustained 28 wounds, while her children had also suffered fatal injuries.

The news was a devastating blow to Mark, an ocean away and completely helpless. The grief and shock were so immense that he collapsed and had to be hospitalized. The dream he had sacrificed everything for had been stolen in the most brutal way imaginable.

The investigation in San Quintin faced an immediate challenge. The perpetrator had taken the home’s CCTV recorder, a clear sign that this was an inside job committed by someone who knew the layout of the house. With no weapon and no security footage, police began the difficult process of questioning all relatives living within the family compound.

Their attention soon focused on one person: the victim’s 24-year-old cousin, Dexter D. Choco. Investigators noticed he had fresh scratches and cuts on his hands, arms, and legs. When questioned, Dexter offered a flimsy alibi: he claimed his wife had inflicted the injuries during a domestic dispute.

Suspicious, the police brought his wife in for questioning. She confirmed they had fought, but flatly denied that she had scratched or hit him. In fact, she told them, she had kicked him out of their house on April 19, and he had returned the next day, April 20—the day of the incident—already bearing the suspicious marks.

With his alibi shattered, Dexter’s story fell apart, and he confessed. He recounted a chilling sequence of events fueled by substance abuse and a long-held grudge. On that afternoon, while drunk and high, he had gone to his cousin’s house while she was at the market and began throwing rocks at it to scare the two children who were home alone.

When he noticed the home’s CCTV camera pointing at him, he panicked. Fearing he would be caught, he made the fateful decision to enter the house.

When Crysteline returned, she walked in on the commotion. Dexter, hiding behind a door, attacked her. She bravely fought back, screaming for her children to hide, but he pursued the family into a bedroom. In the ensuing struggle, he tragically ended the lives of Crysteline and her two young children. Before fleeing, he took the CCTV recorder, the weapon, and two cellphones to cover his tracks.

The motive, police discovered, was a bitter and petty resentment. The kind and generous Crysteline had often lent money to her cousin, but after he repeatedly failed to pay her back, she eventually refused to give him more.

This refusal, likely because she suspected the money was for his drug habit, festered into a deep-seated anger that exploded in a moment of intoxicated paranoia, with devastating consequences. Dexter Choco was charged with three counts of murder and remains in prison, a stark reminder of how a family’s dream, built on love and sacrifice, can be destroyed from within by a debt of resentment.