Slain model’s pal urged to see cops

The Quezon City Police District Saturday urged the last known companion of slain college student and commercial model Julie Ann Rodelas to come forward and disclose what she knew of her abduction that ended in her killing early last week.

This was after Althea Altamirano, also a model, appeared in a TV interview Friday night saying she witnessed the abduction of Rodelas in Pasay City hours before she turned up dead in Cubao, Quezon City.

“We expect her to come to our investigators anytime. She is the vital link in our investigation since she was the last one seen with the victim,” said Chief Insector Rodelio Marcelo, head of the QCPD’s Criminal Investigation and Detection Unit.

Police said it was Altamirano who went to the Pasay City police to report the abduction. According to a blotter entry, she and Rodelas were walking on Diosdado Macapagal Boulevard around 12:30 a.m on Tuesday when two men grabbed Rodelas and dragged her into a vehicle.

Witnesses said they first heard a shot and then saw the body of Rodelas, a 20-year-old hotel and restaurant management student, dropped onto the street from a black Mitsubishi Montero around 5 a.m. on 18th Street in Murphy, Cubao.

Police recovered from Rodelas’ body a receipt from a McDonald’s branch on UN Avenue, Manila, indicating a purchase for two burgers made at 2:33 a.m. on Tuesday, or about two hours after her abduction.

In an interview on GMA News Friday night, Altamirano said two men grabbed her friend and that Pasay City policemen did not go after the abductors. Julie M. Aurelio