Sarah Lalata-Buco with her husband Jhuls Buco and her late father Mohd Abdullah, who was found dead in Kamloops on March 17 (Image Credit: Sarah Lalata-Buco)

By Chad Klassen

MOHD ABDULLAH

Daughter of Kamloops homicide victim still looking for answers after father’s death

Mar 29, 2022 | 11:55 AM

KAMLOOPS — “We’re really surprised, we’re really shocked. We never expected that in the news. We expected that Mohd [Abdullah] died because of sickness or natural causes, but being murdered. That’s unacceptable.”

What’s even more shocking for Abdullah’s daughter Sarah Lalata-Buco and her husband Jhuls Buco is to hear that her father’s trusted friend Butch Bagabuyo is connected to his death.

“We see Butch’s picture and we realized this was the man [Abdullah] is always telling us that he’s a good man, a trusted friend,” said Jhuls Buco, who was helping translate for Sarah. “We were shocked. Why was he even in the news, interfering with a dead body?”

The couple says Abdullah would tell Bagabuyo everything about his property, his assets. He was a person Abdullah fully trusted.

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However, they don’t anything beyond what’s been in the news. In fact, Lalata-Buco only found out about her father’s death through a friend in the Philippines who had seen the news from Kamloops. She and her husband at first didn’t believe it, hoping it was a joke.

Lalata-Buco last heard from her dad on March 1 when he emailed her to say happy birthday. She then messaged him on March 17, but never heard back. It was the same day Kamloops RCMP were called to Monterey Place in Dufferin to investigate a suscipious death, which turned out to be Abdullah.

However, Sarah did not suspect anything was wrong.

“We are exchanging emails, but because he is a busy man, he’s busy in his profession at Thompson Rivers University, we receive emails once or twice a month,” she said. “So that’s usual for us for not having regular communications. That’s why we were really shocked.”

Lalata-Buco lives in the Philippines and only reconnected with Abdullah in 2017.

Sarah Lalata-Buco with her now-deceased father Mohd Abdullah (Image Credit: Sarah Lalata-Buco)

“My dad was a kind person. He’s only reserved, he’s also quiet. He always gave me wisdom. He always gave us advice about life, about love life,” she said. “I can also see him as passionate in his work.”

Lalata-Buco hasn’t heard from police about the case and her calls to the Kamloops detachment have just been forwarded to voicemail. She reached out to Bagabuyo online asking what happened.

She and her husband just want answers.

“We are angry, we are mad, we are sad,” the couple said. “We can’t imagine how my dad was found dead. We can also imagine how was he killed? Was he strangled to death? Was he shot? Or was he beaten to death? We have no clue.”