MANILA – Relatives and fans of murdered actress Nida Blanca claim it is poetic justice.
This was their reaction to reports from Tracy, California that Roger Lawrence 'Rod' Strunk, the American husband of the late actress who is also the main suspect in her gruesome murder in 2001, fell to his death in an apparent suicide from a hotel balcony in California July 11.
Local newspaper Tracy Press quoted police reports as saying that Strunk, 68, purportedly committed suicide by jumping from a balcony at the Tracy Inn onto the parking lot pavement 20 feet below.
A local resident reportedly found Strunk
at the parking lot already lifeless and bleeding before alerting the police.
The newspaper quoted police Sgt. Steve
Beukelman as saying that Strunk apparently committed suicide.
Though no one actually saw Strunk leap to
his death from his hotel room, Beukelman said there were indications that
Strunk took his own life.
Tracy Police Department Public
Information Officer Matt Robinson said the local coroner’s office has
established that Strunk died from the impact after hitting the parking lot head
first.
The coroner’s report also said Strunk had
locked himself in his room and lodged a chair by the door.
Strunk had been living in Tracy since
October 2003 after successfully avoiding extradition to the Philippines, where
he is charged with masterminding Blanca’s murder.
Strunk was charged in the Philippines
with parricide along with four principal suspects in the killing of Blanca, who
was found stabbed to death inside her car on Nov. 7, 2001. The actress had 13
stab wounds to the head and chest.
Strunk left for the US after his wife’s
burial. Philippine authorities had granted Strunk’s request to visit his dying
mother in Tracy.
Philippine authorities filed the murder
charges when Strunk was in the US. After his mother’s death, Strunk remained in
Tracy, successfully avoiding the extradition efforts against him.
After the Philippine authorities filed an
extradition request to the US government, Strunk was briefly arrested and
detained at the Sacramento County Jail.
US authorities threw out the extradition
request because Philippine authorities failed to provide additional evidence
against Strunk after the alleged hired killer, Philip Medel, recanted his
testimony identifying the American as the mastermind.
Strunk had been living in Tracy since
October 2003 after successfully avoiding extradition.
Strunk had a brief singing career in the
late 1950s and early 1960s, taking on the screen name ‘Rod Lauren.’ He grew up
in Fresno, but later moved to Tracy in 1943 with his parents, Larry and Helen
Strunk.
Strunk attended schools in Tracy and was
even a newspaper boy for the Tracy Press. He graduated from Tracy High
School in 1957. While a student there,
he appeared in school plays and played trombone in the school band.
Strunk began singing in Fresno’s local
clubs 1959. It was during one of those gigs that he was asked to audition by a
recording executive. Strunk was later signed up by RCA records.
He had some success but his recording
career was not that high. He continued singing in clubs in Southern California
and Las Vegas lounges while appearing in several action movies.
In 1964, Strunk went to the Philippines
for the filming of a movie and there met Blanca, Dorothy Jones in real life.
Strunk shuttled between California and
the Philippines until they decided to get married in 1979 and lived together
for 23 years.
Strunk then became a permanent resident
in Manila and often-photographed companion for his wife.
Philippine police claim money and
property could have driven Strunk to order Blanca?s murder, noting that the
American had piled up debts and was disinherited by the actress before she was
killed.
Reports say Strunk was writing a book
about his experiences in the Philippines.
In December, Strunk reportedly told his
friends that he was marrying someone in Redding in Oregon. The marriage did not
push through and Strunk moved back to Tracy.
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