The man caught on camera footage hugging Filipino flight attendant Christine Dacera in a hotel hallway before being found dead in a bathtub claims that Dacera “initiated the kiss with me,” a report said.
Valentine Rosales, one of 11 men suspected of the 23-year-old’s alleged rape and murder on New Year’s Eve, also said she was typically flirtatious when she drank, Philippine news outlet GMA reported.
“[S]he was the one who started the kiss with me, ”Rosales told GMA.
I tried to open the door. I rang the bell. She was the one who grabbed me.
“I rang the bell but I avoided her, I avoided her.”
CCTV footage released Wednesday shows Dacera kissing a man in the hallway of the luxury hotel – where she later failed to respond in her room’s bathtub.
GMA reported that a longer version of the footage shared on Rosales’ Facebook account shows him retiring from Dacera shortly after she made a move.
Authorities identified 11 men celebrating the New Year with the flight attendant and took three into custody – only for prosecutors to later release them for lack of evidence.
GMA also reported that Dacera’s body was later embalmed without her family’s consent – and before an autopsy could be performed.
Rommel Galido, another friend who was partying with Dacera – and one of three men briefly detained by the police – told the news service that the flight attendant was occasionally “very naughty” when she got drunk.
But Galido told the Philippine Star that at one point Dacera told him she believed “someone put something in my drink.”
He said Dacera later vomited.
Another of the men detained, Dela Serna, told GMA that he carried Dacera back to her hotel room around 4 a.m. on January 1 – and that an expanded version of the hallway video shows her getting up and ringing the bell.
Makati City police said investigations into her death are continuing.