The family of Filipino stewardess Christine Angelica Dacera is requesting additional CCTV footage from the hotel where she was allegedly raped and killed after a New Year’s Eve party, according to reports.
Surveillance footage has already shown the 23-year-old in the lobby of the City Garden Grand Hotel – catching her kissing one of the 11 men she is said to have spent the night with.
The family’s lawyers – who still believe Philippine Airlines was raped and killed – are now looking for all the footage, including angles other than those already revealed online, the Philippine Daily Inquirer said.
The images so far “do not tell the whole story,” lawyer Jose Ledda III told ABS-CBN News.
“Our position right now is that we have an even deeper understanding of what really happened in those days and that we need to be offered CCTV footage that is not exclusive to that angle,” he said, according to the Daily Inquirer report. .
Dacera was found unconscious in the tub of her empty room in early January and was pronounced dead after friends and hotel staff took her to a hospital in Makati City.
Claiming to find physical evidence of the rape, Makati police temporarily charged all 11 men who were with her with rape and murder.
But prosecutors released three of those arrested later on Wednesday, insisting that police had not yet proved her rape – let alone that the attack led to her death. Initial autopsy results said he died of a “broken aortic aneurysm.”
On Thursday, the head of the National Capital Region Police Bureau, Brigadier General Vicente Danao Jr., admitted that there was not enough evidence to charge him, accusing him of “impatience [local] the police to submit the file ”.
“What is important is to determine the cause of death to avoid such incidents,” he said, according to the Daily Inquirer.
The delay could also mean it is too late to collect essential samples, with the “critical period” of 72 hours missing, forensic doctor Dr. Raquel Fortun, CNN Philippines, said Thursday.
“If you re-examine the body to collect such materials in retrospect, it’s late in the day,” said Fortun, who is not involved in the case.
“What else can you get?” You’ve already washed (your body), so you may have already lost material there, “she told CNN.
“It simply came to our notice then. Everything the body is exposed to could potentially be left on it. So, for me, it’s late.