Remains of Iloilo lass found under motel bed

ILOILO CITY — A complaint by a couple about a foul smell in their room led employees of a motel here to discover last Friday morning the decomposing body of a 22-year-old female fisheries graduate under the bed.

The couple thought the bad odor came from a dead rat and merely ignored it. But upon checking out of Room 135 after several hours, they told personnel of the Q Drive Motel on Jereos street in La Paz district, about it.

Police identified the dead girl as Monyeen Paniza, of Barangay Tuburan, Pototan, Iloilo, a graduate of a stewardship course at the Iloilo State College of Fisheries in Barotac Nuevo town.

A plastic bag fastened by steel wire covered Paniza’s head, and her mouth was gagged with a cloth.

Probers said she might have been dead for three days, based on autopsy findings by the regional police crime laboratory at Camp Delgado. Her death was attributed to "asphyxia" by suffocation.

Investigation showed that Paniza and one Peter Mijares allegedly checked in at the motel at about 10 a.m. of April 8. The two reportedly arrived on board an owner-type jeep with license plate FDM 729.

Probers quoted witnesses as saying that Mijares checked out alone at about 6 p.m. the same day.

The jeep led investigators to Mijares. Police went to his house in Pototan Saturday night but he was not around. They found the jeep in a repair shop in Leganes town.

In an interview with Aksyon Radyo Iloilo, Mijares’ lawyer Ronie Delicana denied his client’s involvement in Paniza’s death, saying Mijares was in a bank in another town when the incident happened.

But Delicana said his client admitted knowing Paniza, having been classmates at the Iloilo State College of Fisheries.

During the interview, a female listener sent a text message to one of the anchormen, saying she knew something about the incident and that she was inside Room 135 at about noon of April 8.

This corroborated information from motel employees that there was a visitor in that room.