Text messages bring coed to ‘den’ of would-be rapist

DAVAO CITY — This nursing coed’s ordeal started with text messages. Luckily, she survived it but the seven stabs wounds — and the emotional scars of an attempted rape — that she suffered would perhaps make her wary of such messages.

It all began when Ann (not her real name), a 20-year-old graduating nursing student, received text messages from one Jonathan Ilao, said to be a nurse at the San Pedro Hospital.

Ilao pretended to be her aunt Jenny Bilbera and instructed her, through "texting," to go to Room 308 of the Aljems Inn along Pichon Avenue at about 9 p.m. last Monday.

Ann heeded the instruction with nary a doubt, especially when the inn’s personnel told her that the room was under Bilbera’s name.

When she got inside the room, she got another text message asking her to take a bath while waiting for her "aunt." She did.

But while in the shower, Ilao suddenly appeared and attempted to rape her. She fought off his sexual advances but got stabbed instead. Luckily, the stab wounds were only shallow, police said.

Her shouts for help alerted the inn’s staffers to come to her rescue. Her attacker, however, managed to escape and is now the subject of a police manhunt. — Edith Regalado