After suicide ruling, review sought in death of woman in hotel

CEBU, Philippines - The family of the woman who died inside a hotel last year has filed a petition for review of the decision of the Lapu-Lapu City Prosecutor’s Office dismissing the parricide case they filed against the woman’s husband.

They are asking the Office of the Secretary of the Department of Justice (DOJ) to review the ruling that stated Elke Mae Victorio, 28, committed suicide and was not killed by her husband, Paul Stephen Montenegro.

Victorio died on December 22, 2009. She was found hanging inside the room of a hotel in Lapu-Lapu City.

The family filed a parricide case against Montenegro but the prosecutor’s office dismissed the case, stating that what happened was suicide.

In their petition for review before the DOJ, the family said that the prosecutor’s office erred in its decision because it relied heavily only on the findings of Dr. Nestor Satur of the PNP Crime Laboratory that she died by hanging.

For the family, the finding of forensic pathologist Dr. Raquel del Rosario Fortun, a private practitioner, should have been given weight as it’s not true that private medical practitioners could not be considered disinterested witnesses in a case.

 Fortun had stated that Victorio’s death was caused by “asphyxia by compression of the neck” and was “more consistent with strangulation than hanging.” She also found “blunt force injuries” in Victorio’s head, which, according to them, Satur failed to notice.

A toxicology test on the victim was also done and the result showed traces of “ecstacy” pill and alcohol. This convinced the family that there was foul play involved, as they believe that Paul drugged the victim.

Also, the family said that while Victorio died in the hotel on Dec. 22, her husband Paul failed to report her death immediately. They believe there was an attempt to cover up the crime.

Paul had claimed that he woke up late in the evening of Dec. 22 and found his wife hanging in a closet. Paul’s driver, in an affidavit, admitted going up to the hotel room that night as he was instructed by Paul to take his bag to the car and dispose of some leftover food.

The Victorio family asked why the resident doctor of the hotel was called in to the couple’s room only in the afternoon of Dec. 23. The police investigators were called in later, and when they arrived, Paul’s lawyer was already inside the room.

In their petition, the family also pointed out that Paul, in his sworn statement before the police station and the prosecutor, said that he slept from 8 a.m. that day to about midnight. When he found the victim’s body hanging by a cord, he cut the cord and carried the body to the bed and tried to revive her.

When this failed, Paul added, he got drunk and fell asleep beside Victorio’s dead body and woke up after lunchtime of the next day.

This claim of Paul, according to the family, was not consistent with what was recorded by the hotel’s security cameras which caught him awake in between that time.

The Victorio family filed a parricide complaint against Paul and Colina but the Lapu-Lapu City Prosecutor’s Office dismissed it on July 22, 2010. They filed a motion for reconsideration but this was also denied last Sept. 24. This prompted them to raise the matter before the DOJ. — THE FREEMAN