Benguet lass gang-raped, then killed

BAGUIO CITY — Police are still facing a blank wall in the gruesome death of a still unidentified teenage girl who was gang-raped and her body dumped in a 16-foot ravine in Tuba, Benguet last Wednesday morning.

Superintendent Vladimir Villaseñor, regional crime laboratory chief of the Philippine National Police who conducted the autopsy, considers the rape-slaying one of the most heinous in Tuba this year.

He describes the victim as aged 13-16, fair-complexioned, and had a "spiked" hairdo, a silver ring on her left hand and no earrings.

Villaseñor’s team found the girl naked in a fetal position 38 feet from the left side of the barangay road and below a 16-foot deep rip-rapped wall.

Villaseñor said a huge rock used to bash the girl to death lay on her crushed skull. The victim also had punctures in the face and at least six stab wounds in different parts of the body.

Her white bra was dangling near one of her arms, her blue underwear wrapped around her left foot, her denim jeans and black high-cut leather hiking shoes scattered nearby, and a black-handled screwdriver found near her pants.

No shirt, blouse or jacket or any other means to identify her was found in the vicinity.

Villaseñor said she was positive for rape because of fresh lacerations on her genitalia and the presence of semen.

Police believe more than one person might be involved in the gruesome crime, arguing that it would take a group to lift the huge rock with which her head was bashed.

Investigation showed that a white van was seen in the area between 2:30 and 3:30 a.m. Wednesday moments before a female voice was heard to have cried out, "Huwag po!" twice.

The victim’s remains lie in state at the Funeraria La Paz here.