GAPAN CITY – A couple aboard a tricycle was gunned down by two motorcycle-riding assassins riding in tandem along the Maharlika Highway this city over the weekend.

Dead on arrival at a hospital here was Ferdinand Valerio Mendoza alias “Ketty,” 44, married, jobless, of Purok 4 Barangay Mangino here.  His wife, Evalyn Sarmiento Mendoza, 30, sustained serious injuries and is now under observation at the Good Samaritan hospital in this city.

Mendoza succumbed to two gunshot wounds in his head and abdomen.  Bullets that hit “Ketty” also hit his wife when the latter hugged her husband to shield him from the assassins.

According to Supt. Ricardo E. Villanueva, officer-in-charge chief of police, the notoriety of the “Ketty Group” reaches up to Bulacan, Tarlac, Pampanga and Pangasinan, victimizing homeowners as well as commercial and business establishments.

The couple was then aboard a motorized tricycle when waylaid by the helmeted gunmen aboard an XRM Honda motorcycle without plates.

They had just come from a bonding company after posting bail for charges of drug and gun possession, it was learned.

Meanwhile, a seven-man team led by SPO1 Cordero arrested Pascual Gumaquio Bautista, 57, driver, of Purok 5, Barangay Pambuan here, for possession of a 12-gauge shotgun (“karatay”) with four live ammunition.

The suspect was reportedly harassing one Bernardo Tinio of same place when he was chanced upon by the police patrol.

Bautista is detained at the city police’s detention center preparatory to the filing of criminal charges before the city’s prosecutor’s office.