Cops have 2 witnesses vs suspects in rape of corpse

MARIA AURORA, Aurora, Philippines – Police are fielding two witnesses against three suspected necrophiles who allegedly dug up the rotten corpse of a pretty teenaged girl and allegedly raped her inside a cemetery here last February.

Chief Inspector Michael Amio, police station commander, said a 40-year-old and a cemetery worker will be among the witnesses in the cases they filed against Rey Mark Regero, one John Does and one Peter Does. The three are still at large.

The three were tagged as the ones who dug up the corpse of the 15-year-old victim inside the public cemetery in Barangay 01 and sexually abused her last Feb. 20.

The incident has left Aurorans horrified and outraged, wondering how living people could carry out the act of raping a dead person who was buried for more than a week already.

The victim’s 57-year-old father filed the complaint before police which in turn filed the information for desecration of the dead and malicious mischief before the provincial prosecutor’s office in Baler town for the act constituting necrophilia, the act of having erotic attraction to corpses.

The victim, described as ravishing and with many suitors when she was still alive, died when a speeding motorcycle ran her over in Barangay San Jose last Feb. 3. After a nine-day wake, she was finally buried at the cemetery on Feb. 12.

The cemetery worker, in his affidavit to police, said he saw the three suspects on three consecutive days while roaming around the cemetery on Feb. 18, 19 and 20 looking at the tombs as if searching for something.

He said that on Feb. 21, he went to the police station to seek cash advance from a policeman who was his boss when he learned about the reported forcible destruction of a tomb wherein the naked corpse of a girl was pulled out.

He said he then recalled his encounter with Regero who he positively identified in a police line-up and his two other companions days before the incident.

PO3 Angelo Gawat, investigator of the local police, said Dr. Roman Balangue said the dead victim may have been raped after examining her private parts.

When the victim’s cadaver was found, it was decomposing fast and worms could be seen around it.

The woman witness said she saw Regero hitting the tomb containing the victim’s corpse with a piece of rock.