The family of Philippine flight attendant Christine Angelica Dacera is reportedly demanding extra CCTV recordings of the hotel where she was allegedly raped and killed after a New Year’s Eve party.
The video clips showed the 23-year-old in the hallway of the City Garden Grand Hotel. She captured how she kissed one of the eleven men with whom she participated that evening.
Lawyers for the family – who still believe the Philippine Airlines employee was raped and murdered – are now looking for all the footage, including angles other than those already leaked online, the Philippine Daily Inquirer said.
The footage so far “does not tell the whole story”, lawyer Jose Ledda III told ABS-CBN News.
“Our position at present is that we have a better understanding of what really happened at that time, and that we should be provided with CCTV recordings that are not exclusive to that particular angle,” he said, according to the Daily Inquirer report. said.
Dacera was found unconscious in the empty bathtub in her room early January 1 and pronounced dead after friends and hotel staff rushed her to a Makati City hospital.
Makati City police say they have found physical evidence of rape, all 11 men who have been with her have tentatively charged with rape and murder.
But prosecutors released three people arrested on Wednesday, insisting that police still have to prove she was raped – not to mention that the attack led to her death. According to initial autopsy results, she died of a ‘ruptured aortic aneurysm’.
Brigadier General Vicente Danao Jr., chief of police of the national metropolitan area, admitted on Thursday that there was not enough evidence to charge them, blaming the “eagerness of the [local] police to file the case. ”
“What is important is that we determine the cause of death to avoid incidents like this,” he told the Daily Inquirer.
The delay could also mean that it is too late to collect important samples, with the ‘critical time frame’ of 72 hours long, said dr. Raquel Fortun, the forensic pathologist, told CNN Philippines on Thursday.
“If you are going to re-examine the body to gather such material in the background, it is late in the day,” said Fortun, who is not involved in the case.
What else can you get? “You have already washed (the body), so you may have lost material there,” she told CNN.
‘And there is a possibility of pollution. Everything the body is exposed to can possibly be left on it. So it was too late for me to sweep. ‘