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Thursday, May 06, 2004
Police assure speedy probe of Boracay massacre
By Ruby P. Silubrico and Jennifer M. Depakakibo
ILOILO -- The Police Regional Office 6 is optimistic the murder of three Europeans and a Filipina in Boracay Island would be solved shortly as President Arroyo Wednesday ordered police to speed up investigation on the killings.
Chief Supt. George Aliņo, regional police director, made the assurance as he reiterated that visitors in Boracay are still safe despite the incident.
"Our foreign and local visitors have nothing to worry about. We assure their safety in Boracay," Aliņo said.
He said that aside from the 130 Boracay-based policemen, augmentation forces from the Armed Forces of the Philippines, Philippine Coast Guard and Maritime Group have been deployed in the island resort this summer.
Presidential spokesman Ignacio Bunye said Arroyo has expressed concern over the "gruesome crime" but the government believes that the incident remains isolated.
Bunye is also confident that the tourism trade in Boracay would not suffer despite the incident.
"Security and law enforcement measures are bolstered and the culprits are brought to justice," he added.
Nine detained
As of Wednesday, the police already detained nine persons for questioning. They are among the 25 workers hired to construct a swimming pool and a resthouse at the mansion owned by one of the victims.
Killed were Anton Faustenhauser, owner of the mansion; his friends Manfred Schoeni and John Cowperthwaite; and Filipina househelp Irma Sarmiento.
Faustenhauser, a German property developer, is married to a Filipina named Josephine.
Schoeni, born of Swiss parents in Germany, is one of Asia's best-known art dealers and an owner of one of the largest vineyards in South Africa, while Cowperthwaite, a British national, is an architect.
The German's three-storey mansion, called Dolce Vita, is built on a hill at Sitio Bulabog in Barangay Balabag.
Their decomposing bodies were found by policemen inside the mansion late Monday afternoon after Faustenhauser's friend Patrick Higgs saw Sarmiento's body when he peeped into a window. Higgs was requested by Faustenhauser's wife to check on him when she failed to reach him Sunday.
More than 24 hours
Aliņo, quoting the medico-legal report of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI), said autopsy analysis shows the victims, who were repeatedly stabbed, were already dead for more than 24 hours when their bodies were discovered. This means they may have been killed between Saturday evening and Sunday morning.
Police investigators found in the kitchen sink two knives believed used in killing the victims.
Aliņo said fingerprints were lifted from their bodies, establishing that they have physical contact with the perpetrators.
Robbery
Aliņo said investigators are still focusing on the robbery angle.
"There was a killing maybe because the victims resisted," he said.
Faustenhauser has defense wounds, based on the autopsy report. He added they continue to believe it was an "inside job" as there was no sign of a forced entry.
Aliņo said victims' families were already allowed to go inside the mansion.
Aliņo denied reports the police imposed a news blackout on the incident, saying he even granted an interview to Hong Kong and German press.(With reports from JMR of Sunnex Luzon)
(May 6, 2004 issue)
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