With the shocking discovery came more questions.
The decomposing bodies of two toddlers reported missing four months ago were found Tuesday morning inside a damaged car on a gated private lot in Taguig City.
Fellow children found the remains of Dayne Buenaflor, 3, and James Naraga, 4, inside a black Mercedes Benz (UGX-606) which had dark-tinted windows and was parked alongside other damaged cars on Dama de Noche Street in Barangay Wawa.
The boys were identified based on their clothes and slippers, according to city police chief Senior Supt. Art Asis.
Barangay Wawa chair Philip Buenaflor, an uncle of Dayne, also confirmed to the identities of the bodies, which were found in the car’s backseat.
“We still don’t know what caused their deaths,” Asis said, noting that the car itself and its vicinity showed no signs of foul play and that an autopsy was underway.
Investigators were looking at the possibility that the children went to the lot to play and accidentally locked themselves up inside the Mercedes Benz, he said.
Their families residing in Wawa once searched the area but found no sign of the minors, he added.
The police said lot owner Elvinario Valenzuela earlier asked three children to clean the vehicles which were damaged by the floods caused by Tropical Storm “Ondoy” in 2009 and again by heavy monsoon rains last year.
This was after Valenzuela picked up a foul smell in the area, which he thought came from a dead animal.
The Benz is owned by Valenzuela’s brother Gregorio, whom Asis said was placed under investigation but not yet considered a suspect pending the results of the autopsy.
Around 11 a.m. Tuesday, the cleaners were shocked to see the dead children inside the black Benz.
Asis recalled that since the children’s disappearance on March 27, their families searched as far as the provinces after getting calls from people claiming to have sighted the toddlers.