PNP: No foul play in teen’s death
The police have ruled out foul play in the death of 15-year-old Isabelle Sophia Tablate, a Grade 9 student whose body was found on a lot in Pasig City, days after her father reported her missing.
“There was no sign that she was killed or subjected to any form of violence,” Capt. Rodolfo Rabago said in a press briefing in Pasig on Thursday. He is the team leader of the Pasig police crime scene operatives who examined the site where Tablate’s body was discovered.
The teenager, a student of a private school in Quezon City, was last spotted on March 18, leaving a mall in Marikina City. Footage taken by closed circuit TV cameras later showed her heading toward a dimly lit lot beside the Light Rail Transit 2 depot in Santolan, Pasig.
Pasig police deputy chief Maj. Loreto Tigno said that an alarm was issued on March 19, while a special investigation task group was formed by the police to locate her after she was reported missing by her father.
Tablate was finally found on March 23 after investigators spent days examining security footage and taking statements from her father, ex-boyfriend and friends.
“Initial investigation at the scene found a decomposing female body, fitting the description of the reported missing minor, … at the said compound,” the Pasig City police said in a statement immediately afterward.
Phone recovered
According to Tigno, police operatives recovered from the scene the teenager’s belongings, including her cellphone and at least three letters she left behind for her friends.
Tigno said that investigators are looking at the possibility of conducting a digital forensic examination of Tablate’s phone in the hopes of getting more information.
JR Tablate, the teenager’s father, who was also at the media briefing, said he did not see any signs that she was depressed.
“There were no obvious problems at home … In school, you wouldn’t even think she had a problem outside the family because of how active she was in school, in sports and in extracurricular activities,” JR said.
“She had no letter for our family. She did not give a hint that this would happen. Maybe that’s why it hurts because this was so sudden,” he added. INQ
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