Catherine Camilon (Facebook)
LUCENA CITY – One of the suspects in the disappearance in October last year of Miss Grand Philippines 2023 candidate Catherine Camilon surrendered on the police in Balayan, Batangas Tuesday morning.
The Police Region 4A (PRO-4A), in a press statement, said Jeffrey Magpantay, 33, appeared at the police station accompanied by his live-in partner, “to submit himself for preventive custody” at around 11:59 a.m.
“The suspect, Jerry Magpantay is believed to be the driver of the prime suspect, Police Major Allan De Castro who is now facing both administrative and criminal charges,” the police statement said.
The PRO-4A said Magpantay’s surrender came in the wake of charges filed against him in connection to the crime of kidnapping and serious illegal detention of the missing beauty queen.
The police said Magpantay “is determined to cooperate with the legal process by submitting a waiver of detention” which his legal counsel signed.
“This act of Mr. Magpantay signals his commitment to face the charges levied against him in a lawful and transparent manner,” Police Brigadier General Paul Kenneth Lucas, PRO-4A director, said.
Camilon, 26, went missing while driving her car from her home in Barangay Rillo in Tuy town to Batangas City on Oct. 12.
The teacher-model, who was crowned as Miss Batangas, was last seen inside a shopping mall in Lemery town at around 7 p.m. on Oct. 12.
Camilon’s last text message was to her mother where she said she was at a gasoline station in Bauan. There had been no updates from her since then.
According to the investigators, De Castro was the person Camilon was going to meet on the day of her disappearance.
De Castro, a married man who admitted having an illicit affair with Camilon, is considered the primary suspect in the case.
De Castro has been charged with kidnapping and illegal detention.
De Castro, the deputy chief of the Batangas provincial police drug enforcement unit, is restricted to PRO-4A headquarters in Laguna.
In early November last year, two witnesses surfaced and told investigators that they saw three men transferring the body of Camilon from one vehicle to a Honda CRV the night of Oct. 12 while they were on their way to Bauan town.
The other vehicle in the witnesses’ description matched the Nissan Juke Camilon was driving on the day she disappeared.
Four days after the witnesses came forward, the police recovered a red Honda CRV without its plate number and conduction sticker at a vacant lot in Batangas City.
The DNA samples from the hair strands found in the Honda CRV matched the DNA samples of Camilon’s parents.