INQUIRER FILE PHOTO
LEGAZPI CITY, Albay, Philippines — Police in Camarines Sur province have declared as solved the case of 18-year-old Irish Mae Payonga — who was robbed, raped, and then murdered — following the arrest and confession of the suspect.
The suspect confessed to the crime after being identified by a witness, according to Col. Julius Caesar Domingo, chief of the Camarines Sur Police Provincial Office, who held a press conference Tuesday night in Naga City, Camarines Sur.
Domingo also presented pieces of evidence pointing to the suspect, Reymark Belleza, as the one who killed Payonga and dumped her body in a grassy lot in Barangay Cadlan in Pili town, Camarines Sur.
Belleza was arrested at 6:30 a.m. Tuesday after police traced and located his pedicab. Domingo did not say the exact location where the suspect was arrested.
Payonga, a senior high student and a resident of Camaligan town, was reported missing on Friday, Oct. 28, when she failed to return home from a church event at the Capitol Convention Center in Pili.
She was found dead on Monday, Oct. 31.
Payonga boarded Belleza’s pedicab on the night that she went missing. Domingo said that Payonga never reached the church event venue.
Police also presented security camera footage from outside a convenience store where Payonga bought snacks before boarding Belleza’s pedicab with another passenger, who they did not identify.
Domingo said that the other passenger was a witness and gave a statement describing Belleza as “nangangamoy alak” — reeking of alcohol.
An autopsy on Payonga’s body indicated that she had been raped.
Investigations revealed that Belleza also took her phone and was having it reformatted at a shop.
Belleza, who is under the custody of Camarines Sur police, will face charges of robbery, rape, and murder.