A Philippine Airlines flight attendant was killed after being raped at a New Year’s Eve party, and eight men were charged in connection with the incident.
Christine Angelica Dacera, 23, was found unconscious in an empty bathtub in her hotel room at the City Garden Grand Hotel in Makati City early New Year’s Day, the Philippine Daily Inquirer reported.
Friends and hotel staff rushed the Filipino stewardess to a local hospital where doctors later declared her dead.
Officials say she appeared to have initially died from an aneurysm, but police said she also had “lacerations and sperm in her genitalia” as well as scratched arms and legs.
“Based on initial investigation, sexual abuse happened,” Philippine National Police spokesman Brig. Gen. Ilderbrandi Usana told the Inquirer.
Makati City police filed a provisional charge of rape with homicide against 11 men who joined her at the New Year’s Eve party. The charges are provisional as officials still await toxicology results and a final autopsy report.
Three of the suspects were arrested while the others remained on the lam. Those three men were later released from custody after prosecutors said there was a lack of proof that she was raped or murdered, the New York Post reported.
The eight suspects yet to be hunted down still face the provisional charges.
An initial autopsy stated that Dacera died from a “ruptured aortic aneurysm” but made no reference to seminal fluids.
“Only three of them were Dacera’s friends. The others were practically strangers to her, as they were only known to her three friends,” the police chief said.
At least one of the suspects insisted that most of the men were gay.
Dacera worked as a flight attendant for Philippine Airlines Express.
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