Woman slain in QC hotel; partner flees

The Quezon City police are hunting down a man suspected of killing a still-unidentified woman inside a hotel room hours after they checked in early Saturday.

The suspect, identified as Musashi Lucman, was last seen rushing out of Sellana Hotel on Aurora Boulevard and managed to flee despite efforts by the employees to prevent him from leaving, police said.

An initial investigation showed that Lucman and his friend Mohammad Mindalano arrived at the hotel, each with a female companion, around 3 a.m. and asked for separate rooms. An hour later, Mindalano’s partner left.

Mindalano said that around 6 a.m., he heard shouts and a loud thud coming from the other couple’s room.

He said he didn’t think much of it at first but eventually reported it to the hotel’s security officer, Bonifacio Jimenez, about 30 minutes later.

Jimenez went to check and saw Lucman, perspiring and looking nervous, already standing outside the room.

Jimenez asked Lucman to stay put as he called for a room attendant, but the suspect ran off.

Other employees alerted to the disturbance blocked the suspect on the second floor, grabbing his arms, but Lucman managed to break loose and jumped out through the fire exit.

The room Lucman rented was locked when the employees got there. They later found the woman slumped on the bathroom floor in a pool of blood.

The victim bore contusions in the forehead and was apparently also strangled with a bath towel, according to the case investigator, SPO1 Cristituto Zaldarriaga.

The victim had no IDs, cell phone or other items that could help establish her identity, Zaldarriaga said. She was described to be 20 to 30 years old, wearing an orange shirt and jeans, and about 4’11” tall.

Lucman fled wearing the hotel slippers as he left behind his rubber shoes as well as a sling bag containing a sachet of marijuana leaves, the officer added.