Teen girl found dead in Negros sugarcane field

By Glazyl M. Jopson

BACOLOD CITY — Police are reviewing closed-circuit television footage to identify the person last seen with a 13-year-old girl before she was found dead in Candoni, Negros Occidental, on Monday.

Police Capt. Leonel Adolacion, chief of the Candoni Municipal Police Station, said the victim was asked by her mother to buy ice at a sari-sari store in Barangay Haba on Sunday night.

The victim failed to return home.

Her mother initially assumed that she had gone with her friends.

A search was later conducted, but no information on her whereabouts was obtained.

A 15-year-old minor and his friends found the victim’s lifeless body in a sugarcane field in Barangay Poblacion West on Monday night.

Adolacion said the victim had an injury on the forehead and was believed to have been hit with an unknown object.

He said police have persons of interest and leads in the investigation but declined to disclose further details.

Adolacion said police could not yet determine whether the victim was sexually abused, pending the results of an examination conducted by the Provincial Forensic Unit.

He noted that the victim’s clothes were intact when she was discovered.

Adolacion said the victim might have been dumped in the area, as there was no indication that the crime was committed there.

Police have yet to determine the number of people involved in the incident and how the victim ended up in the area.

The investigation is ongoing.