CEBU CITY, Philippines — Investigators, forensics, and embalmers have yet to start an autopsy on the body found inside a garbage bag in the river in Sitio Kalubihan, Barangay Talamban in Cebu City.
But dismembered body parts found off the seawaters of Mandaue City were delivered to them by village watchmen (barangay tanods in Cebuano) hours after the gruesome discovery was made on Saturday, October 24.
READ MORE: Body of woman with missing head, hands and feet, found in Talamban river
Joyce Enriquez, the officer-in-charge of the funeral parlor in Cebu City which stored the body with no head, hands, and feet, confirmed that barangay tanods from Barangay Looc, Mandaue City delivered a left foot and a right arm to their establishment on Saturday evening.
Quoting the tanods, Enriquez said the dismembered body parts were found floating off the seawaters in Barangay Looc last Thursday, October 22, or two days before two residents in Barangay Talamban, who only went out to fish in the village’s river, reported to police about a dead person found inside a garbage bag.
“From what the tanods told us, these body parts were immediately stored in a morgue in Mandaue City after they were brought to shore. When they heard about the news in Barangay Talamban, they decided to take them out of the morgue and bring them here,” Enriquez said in Cebuano.
She said that the village watchmen believed that the body parts belonged to the corpse. However, Enriquez said an autopsy and further forensic tests must be made to determine if the tanods’ hunches were true.
Investigators from the Talamban Police Station have already requested an autopsy on the body found in the river on Saturday.
It was already in the state of decomposition which means that it has been days since the woman was killed.
Initial findings from the police also showed there were no definite marks that would indicate the injuries or wounds were sustained by the unidentified victim. /dbs