Deaf mute is hurt in alleged rape try

A 24-year-old deaf-mute woman got wounded as she saved herself from a neighbor who allegedly attempted to rape her after she watched a benefit dance at New Paradise in barangay Pajo, Lapu-Lapu City yesterday dawn.

The victim's relatives saw her, on her way home, with blood oozing from her head and bruises in different parts of her body.

She pointed at her 32-year-old neighbor Mario Cañedo as the man who assaulted and tried to rape her but failed when she fought back and freed herself from his clutches.

The victim however was mute prompting her relatives to interpret as she relayed her hand signals, narrating her ordeal, to the desk officer of the Lapu-Lapu City police station.

PO2 Christian Torres said the victim went to the police station smeared with kiss marks and hickeys on her neck and hurting from a big wound in her head.

Cañedo, upon learning from talks that he was accused of attempting to rape a woman, went to the police station to surrender himself.

With Cañedo already at the station, Torres invited the victim to come but, before reaching the police office and saw Cañedo from afar, she immediately signaled that it was him who assaulted her.

Although Cañedo denied the allegation, with an alibi that he was not there at the place of the incident, the testimony of the victim and her positive identification of him as the suspect prompted the police to detain him pending the filing of charges against him. - Flor Z. Perolina