Charges for frustrated rape with homicide were filed yesterday before the Cadiz City Prosecutor’s Office against two men tagged as the suspects in the killing of a cellular phone shop cashier, whose body was found in a sugarcane plantation in Brgy. Luna Thursday.

The charges were filed against Antonio Rustia and Joemar Tapil, “alias Bimbol”, 31, who was allegedly a suitor of the victim, Christine Marie Marquez of Purok Kawayanan in Brgy. Luna, Cadiz City, Police chief, Supt. Noel Mana-ay said.

Witnesses claimed they saw the suspects, who were neighbors of Marquez, come out of the sugarcane plantation hours before Marquez’s body was found, Mana-ay said.

Rustia and Tapil had earlier denied the allegations linking them to the crime.

However, Marquez’s aunt, Teresita Gepana, said her niece had told her that she was being courted and harassed by Tapil.

Autopsy conducted by the Medico Legal Office of Cadiz City showed that Marquez bore at least 33 stab wounds but there were no indications that she was raped, and her death was caused by asphyxiation, Mana-ay told the DAILY STAR.

With the filing of charges against the suspects, Mana-ay said, the case is already considered solved.

Based on initial investigation, the victim must have been walking at the pathway when the suspects dragged her into the sugarcane plantation, where they killed her when she fought back, police records showed.

Marquez, who was temporarily staying with her grandparents, was the breadwinner of her family and was the single mother of a 3-year-old girl.

Sugarcane plantation workers discovered her body with her pants and underwear pulled down to her knees while her cellular phone was recovered several meters away from her.*APN

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