PHILIPPINE NEWS SERVICE — GOVERNMENT doctors will take DNA samples from the confessed killer of United States Peace Corps volunteer Julia Campbell to match them with the evidence found where she was killed, an official said yesterday.
“His DNA will be cross-matched with the evidence that police found in the scene of the crime and inside his house,” said Chief Supt. Arturo Cacdac, head of the Crime Laboratory Service.
Woodcarver Juan Dontugan, 25, on Friday gave himself up and confessed to killing Campbell, 40, in a fit of anger in Battad town in Banaue, Ifugao, on April 8, claiming she had bumped into him on a trail but he did not know who or what it was because it was dark.
He said he hit her with a piece of rock, and that he had been very angry before the incident because he had quarreled with a neighborhood bully.
Campbell, 40, a freelance journalist from Fairfax, Virginia, and who had been teaching English at the Divine Word College in Legazpi, Albay, since October 2006, was reported missing on April 8 while hiking alone in Battad to view the world-famous Banaue Rice Terraces. Soldiers found her decomposing body 10 days later in a shallow grave.
Police found near the grave a bloodstained piece of wood, a rice pestle, that they believed Campbell’s killer had used to bludgeon her. They later announced a manhunt for the main suspect, Dontugan, whom they described as 5’7” tall, fair complexioned and strong.
Police said Dontugan went hiding on April 9, a day after Campbell was last seen. A boy then told police that he saw Dontugan near Campbell’s grave on that day.
Police in Ifugao province submitted 18 pieces of evidence including a rice pestle, two pairs of denim pants, and Campbell’s personal belongings including a digital camera and two pairs of eyeglasses.
Officials said they were set to file charges against Dontugan before the provincial prosecutor’s office today, but that they did not know yet exactly what charges to file.
Cordillera police Chief Raul Gonzales said it appeared that Campbell’s killing was not premeditated, but Dontugan’s admission of having buried her could elevate the case to murder from homicide.
Campbell’s killing has been worrying people in Banaue who depend on tourism to make money—and in particular people running restaurants, hotels and inns, and those producing souvenir items.
“We hope that local and foreign visitors would treat the incident as an isolated case,” Ifugao Gov. Glenn Prudenciano said.
“We hope they realize that it does not reflect the general peace and order in the area,” he said.