By ANTHONY GIRON
CAMP GEN. PANTALEON GARCIA, IMUS, Cavite – A young student who went missing for days was found naked waist down and buried in mud at a creekside near Phase III of Hillsview Royale Subdivision in Barangay Timalan Balsahan in Naic, Cavite.
Residents found the body of Mitchie Tolentino Araña, 21, buried in mud that was covered with banana leaves. Only the victim’s fingers were seen in the mud when police came to the area.
Before the body was lifted, police found Araña naked waist down and with her shirt up.
A cord, believed used in strangling the victim, was also found near the body. Araña was believed raped before she was strangled to death.
Nobody could tell yet who did the crime.
Senior Superintendent William M. Segun, Cavite Police Provincial Office (PPO) director, said that the Naic police have established at least “five persons of interest” in the crime, all of whom are construction workers near the crime scene.
Segun and the Naic police have withheld other information about the victim and her death pending investigation and the autopsy result.
Araña was a graduating college student and a scholar of the Cavite State University. Her family reported she was missing since Wednesday when she failed to return home during the day.
The student left the house after she told her mother that she would go to a computer shop.
The victim was listed by police as unidentified until her family went to the scene. Her body was found at 3 p.m. last Friday and was just a kilometer away from her home.