The remains of a 22-year-old woman in Carcar City was defiled by unidentified perpetrators.

The 65-year-old caretaker of Barangay Ocaña Roman Catholic Cemetery confirmed that the body was taken out of its tomb.

Artemio Laputan said that the body was interred last Saturday, October 19, 2024 but in the morning of Sunday, October 20, 2024 the tomb was destroyed.

The coffin was left by the perpetrators on the ground, Laputan said.

He said he immediately reported the incident to the parish priest and to the police.

Laputan also notified the family of the woman. He hold them that the body is inside the casket but in a topsy-turvy form, and that the undergarments were removed.

“Pagkakita nako sa lungon naratol ko ug nakuyawan ko…kay pagtan-aw nako naa na man sa yuta. Didto man to siya gibutang sa ibabaw,” Laputan said. 

Laputan, in an interview with GMA Super Radyo Cebu, surmised that the perpetrators could be residents not far from the area as they were able to locate where he places his pry bar to destroy the tomb. 

According to Police Lieutenant Colonel Bryan O'Neil Salvacion, chief of Carcar City Police Station, said they are waiting for the conclusive report from the Scene of the Crime Operatives (SOCO) who went to the area on October 20, 2024 to collect specimen. 

Swabbing to test suspected semen stain, based on reports that the perpetrators could be necrophiliacs (persons that have sexual attraction to a dead body), became a challenge because the body, according to Lt. Col. Salvacion, was at that time already in the state of advanced rigor mortis.

The police already have persons of interest but will wait for the SOCO report to confirm any sexual assault done to the remains. 

“In the absence of the conclusion, so dili mi make-conclude nga gihilabtan tong biktima, ang patay, pero the mere fact nga gitanggal ang usa ka patay sa panteyon dakong binuang na gyud na siya noh. Unya kanang pagkahukas niya, it aggravates the situation,” Lt. Col. Salvacion said.