‘Revenge’ motive claim for Philippines hotel killings
A former pool cleaner held over the killings of two Australians and their Filipina companion at a Philippines hotel had wanted to retaliate against the business for firing him, officials say.
Two Australians and a Filipina were found dead and bound in a room at the Lake Hotel in Tagaytay. Photo: AP
The bodies of the victims, whose hands and feet were tied, were found sprawled on the floor in a room at the Lake Hotel in Tagaytay city a week ago.
The Australians were named as David James Fisk, 57, and his wife Lucita Barquin Cortez, 55. The couple had flown from Sydney to Bali for a holiday then went to the Philippines on Monday to visit the woman’s two children, and decided to take a short break in Tagaytay before returning to Australia.
A masked, hooded man carrying a sling bag had been seen on hotel security cameras walking out of the victims’ room a few hours before their bodies were discovered.
Tagaytay police chief Charles Daven Capagcuan said the breakthrough in the case came when the suspect was identified by at least three hotel employees based on his image captured by security cameras showing a part of his masked face.
The identification eventually led authorities to the suspect’s home province of Batangas near Tagaytay.
Tagaytay Mayor Abraham Tolentino and Capagcuan presented the handcuffed suspect, wearing a hoodie, dark eyeglasses and a face mask, at a news conference. The man’s name was not announced.
The mayor repeated his apology to the relatives of the victims and to Australia for the “brutal crimes” that took place in his city.
“He wanted to get back at the hotel management for his dismissal,” Capagcuan told reporters, adding the suspect used to work as a swimming pool cleaner at the hotel but was fired in March after he was linked to a robbery in one of the rooms
The man, whose identity was not released, will face criminal complaints for the killings and robbery
The mayor repeated an apology to the victims’ families and to Australia for what he called the senseless killings.
In a Southeast Asian country where many criminal suspects have managed to evade arrest for months or years before getting captured, Tolentino commended the police for rapidly identifying and locating the suspect, who was then apparently pressured to give up.
The man acknowledged taking the watch and shoes of the Australian man after attacking him with a knife and suffocating his partner, a Filipino-Australian woman, and her Filipina daughter-in-law, Capagcuan said.
“He barged randomly with a knife into the room because its window was open,” he said.
– with AAP
