Police identify suspect in Peace Corps volunteer's death (Roundup)

Apr 20, 2007, 7:59 GMT

Manila - Philippine police have identified a suspect in the death of the US Peace Corp volunteer who was killed in a mountainous northern village, and hope to arrest the man as soon as a case is filed against him, a regional spokesman said Friday.

Superintendent Joseph Adnol said the man is a resident of Batad village in Banaue town in Ifugao province, 290 kilometres north of Manila, where the body of 40-year-old Julia Campbell was recovered two days ago.

Adnol did not disclose the name of the man, but said investigators have positively identified him based on the account of several witnesses.

'We already identified him but we could not arrest him until an arrest warrant has been issued,' Adnol, who earlier reported that a suspect had already been taken into police custody, said. 'If the case would be filed today, maybe we could arrest him already.'

'Police in Banaue already have an idea where we can find the suspect but we are withholding that information in order not to bungle the investigation,' he added.

Campbell, who was vacationing in the area famous for its rice terraces, went missing on April 8.

According to an initial investigation, Campbell had planned to go to the famed Ifugao rice terraces, where she was supposed to get a massage. She had also arranged for a tour guide there, but she did not reach the area.

Army troops recovered Campbell's decomposing body on Wednesday from a shallow grave from which her feet protruded, raising suspicions of foul play.

Investigators said the most probable theory in Campbell's death was robbery.

Police Director General Oscar Calderon said a wooden club with bloodstains were recovered near the house of the suspect.

'We recovered a piece of wood with bloodstains at the vicinity of the suspect's home,' he told a local radio station. 'We believe that this was the instrument used in hitting Julia.'

Campbell's body was flown to Manila Thursday, but forensic examinations are not to start until US pathologists arrive to observe the process, according to Superintendent Joselito Rodrigo, chief of the national police's medico-legal division.

Campbell had been teaching at a college in the eastern city of Legazpi since her arrival in the Philippines in March 2005. She had been one of 137 Peace Corps volunteers currently in the Philippines.

The US embassy said more than 8,000 Peace Corps volunteers have served in the Philippines since 1961, making it the second oldest Peace Corps programme in the world.