Filipino lawyer shot dead while on US holiday with mother: ‘I will bring him home soon in a box’
- Philippine government lawyer John Albert Laylo was heading to the airport with his mother when his Uber was stopped at a red light at around 4.10am on Saturday
- The 35-year-old was shot in the back of the head after several rounds were fired into the car. No one was arrested, and no weapon has been found, police said
John Albert Laylo was heading to Philadelphia International Airport with his mother to board a flight and was stopped in the Uber at a red light near the University of Pennsylvania around 4:10am on Saturday, officials said.
Several rounds were fired into the Uber from a black car behind it, police said. The black car then pulled up alongside the Uber and fired several more rounds into it, police said in a news release.
Laylo was shot in the back of the head and taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead on Sunday, police said.
No one was arrested, and no weapon has been found, police said. Authorities did not offer a suspected motive or say whether Laylo, his mother or the Uber driver were intentionally targeted. Homicide detectives are investigating and are looking for surveillance video.
The consulate general of the Philippines said the victim was a lawyer for its government, Philadelphia’s KYW-TV reported.
It wasn’t clear whether the Uber driver or Laylo’s mother were injured, but the latter posted to Facebook on Sunday, indicating she had been hit by shrapnel and saying she had been on holiday with her son, whom she referred to as Jal and said was 35 years old.
“Never did I imagine or dream that … the end of our holiday will be like this!” Leah Bustamante Laylo wrote in a post accompanied by snapshots of her and her son touring sites in New York, Washington and Philadelphia. “We travelled together and we are supposed to go home together! I will bring him home soon in a box!”
Philadelphia, along with other large US cities, is experiencing a surge in gun violence. In one notable episode on June 4, a gun melee in the South Street entertainment district, about 3 miles from the shooting that killed Laylo, left three people dead and several others injured.
