CEBU CITY -- Autopsy report on the six-year-old girl who was found dead at the foot of a cliff in Barili town, Cebu showed that the victim's hymen was intact, but she had contusions and bruises on her arms and mouth.
Medico legal officer Dr. Nestor Sator said Ellah Joy Pique's lower lip was also lacerated; there was a fracture on her skull, and a wound on her back, indicating that the victim may have been struck by a hard object.
"The impact causes her brain to bleed," said Sator.
Ellah, 6, was last seen around 4 p.m. Tuesday waving goodbye to two friends and classmates at the Calajo-an Elementary School in Minglanilla town, as she boarded a black sports utility vehicle, joining a Caucasian man who drove it and a Filipino woman on the passenger seat.
At 7:55 a.m. Thursday, her naked body was found at the foot of a cliff along the national road in Barangay Sayaw, Barili, more than 40 kilometers away from home.
Ellah's body was tightly wrapped, along with three rocks, in two cream-colored blankets. Gray cables snaked around the tiny bundle.
The discovery ended a frantic search by her father Renante, 40, who began looking for Ellah at 5 p.m. Tuesday when she failed to come home from the Calajo-an Elementary School in Minglanilla town.
Ellah Joy is his youngest child and only daughter.
The Grade 1 pupil's belongings were discovered in Patupat, the barangay next to Sayaw, around 9 a.m. These included a pink checkered skirt, pink shorts, a sleeveless white blouse, her violet slippers, a lunch box and her school bag filled with notebooks.
Two P50 bills were among the items found in Patupat, which surprised the girl's father.
"Naa'y kwarta? Wa ko kahatag og kwarta niya (There's money? I did not give her any money)," he said.
Police in Minglanilla received reports that the Caucasian man was seen giving away chocolates to children in Calajo-an prior to the abduction.
To verify if it was the same guy, a cartographic sketch of the Caucasian driving a Pajero based on witnesses' account was released Thursday.
Cebu City Mayor Mike Rama said a special task force should be created to solve the crime.
Capitol said it can only assist in installing guards and tanods in public schools, as this is the concern of the local government units.
The Bureau of Immigration (BI) and the Land Transportation Office (LTO) in Central Visayas are now coordinating with the police to solve the kidnap-murder of Ellah.
BI-Central Visayas Alien Control Officer Casimiro Madarang III said they can immediately trace a record of a foreigner if the police investigating the case can have the name.
Madarang said all the foreigners in Cebu have pictures in their database because upon their arrivals at Mactan Cebu International Airport, their passports are scanned and their records, including their pictures, are stored in the immigration database.
He said that while the Alien Registration Act prohibit them from giving a foreigner's personal data to a private individual, the law also allows them to provide such data to government authorities such as the Philippine National Police, National Bureau of Investigation, and Department of Social Welfare and Development, among others.
LTO-Central Visayas Director Raul Aguilos, for his part, said his regional office can hardly trace the ownership of the black vehicle seen by witnesses as being used by the kidnappers. The plate numbers 679 have no prefix.
Aguilos, who is presently in Manila to attend the International Standard of Operations seminar, said he will spend time with the LTO central office database to identify the vehicle and its owner. (JTG/GC/PDF/EOB/Sun.Star Cebu)
