Mabel Cama, a bank employee, had dreamed of becoming a flight attendant. —PHOTO FROM MABEL CAMA’S FACEBOOK PAGE
A 22-year-old bank employee was found dead and half-naked just meters away from her house in Pasig City on Sunday afternoon.
The police said someone had tried to set on fire the body of the victim, Mabel Cama, as there were burn marks from the waist down.
There were also marks on her face, indicating that she might have been struck by a blunt object. Her underwear and shorts were on the ground beside her.
Cama’s body was discovered in an abandoned office building around 100 meters away from her house in a private compound on Ortigas Avenue Extension in Barangay Rosario around 12:20 p.m. on Sunday.
Hours before, someone had tried to burn down the building, prompting residents to put it out. But since no one went inside the building, it took several hours before the victim was found.
According to Barangay Rosario Executive Officer Floriezel Santos, Cama was reported missing by her father Reynaldo on Saturday morning after she failed to come home on Friday night.
Santos said Cama was last spotted by a neighbor knocking on the door of her house around 11 p.m. on Friday. No one, however, opened the door.
The Inquirer tried to interview the victim’s family, but they declined.
The Pasig police said at least two suspects have been identified based on the account of witnesses.
One of the witnesses said he saw two men standing near the victim as she was knocking on the door of her house on Friday night.
The witness also claimed he saw the two men near the crime scene on Saturday.
Santos, however, did not identify the suspects although he said he was 80 to 90 percent sure that these were the ones involved in the crime.
“The suspects are possibly drug addicts. Is it normal for people to rape someone, kill them and then set the victim on fire?” he asked.
According to him, the compound where the victim lived has been identified as a place where the use of illegal drugs was rampant.
The city police and barangay officials have conducted at least three antidrug operations in the area although no arrests have been made, Santos said.
Scene of the Crime Operatives are still checking the victim’s phone and awaiting the results of an autopsy to determine the cause of death.