The family of Filipino flight attendant Christine Angelica Dacera is demanding additional camera footage of the hotel where she was allegedly raped and murdered after a New Year’s Eve party, according to reports.
CCTV cameras have already shown the 23-year-old in the hallway of the City Garden Grand Hotel – she caught her kissing one of the 11 men she allegedly partied with that night.
The family’s lawyers – who still believe the Philippine Airlines employee was raped and murdered – are now seeking all of the footage, including angles other than those already leaked online, the Philippine Daily Inquirer said.
The images so far “don’t tell the whole story,” attorney Jose Ledda III told ABS-CBN News.
“Our position at the moment is that we have an even deeper understanding of what really happened at that time and that we should be provided with camera images that are not exclusive to that particular angle,” he said, according to the Daily Inquirer report.
Dacera was found unconscious in the empty bathtub of her room early January 1 and was pronounced dead after friends and hotel staff rushed her to a hospital in Makati City.
Makati City police claimed to have found physical evidence of rape and provisionally charged all 11 men with her with rape and murder.
But prosecutors released three on Wednesday who were subsequently arrested, insisting that police had not yet proven that she had been raped – let alone that the attack had resulted in her death. Initial autopsy results said she died of a “ruptured aortic aneurysm.”
On Thursday, Chief of Police of the National Capital Region, Brigadier General Vicente Danao Jr. admitted that there was not enough evidence to charge them, and accused the ‘eagerness of the [local] police to file the case. “
“What is important is that we determine the cause of death to prevent such incidents,” he said, according to the Daily Inquirer.
The delay could also mean it is too late to collect critical samples now that the 72-hour “critical time frame” has passed, forensic pathologist Dr. Raquel Fortun told CNN Philippines on Thursday.
“If you re-examine the body to collect these types of materials afterwards, it will be late in the day,” said Fortun, who is not involved in the case.
‘What else can you get? You’ve already washed (the body), so maybe you’ve already lost material there, ”she told CNN.
‘And there is a risk of contamination. Anything the body is exposed to can potentially be left on it. So in terms of wiping, it’s late for me. “