Mariannet’s pa, brods test negative in drug tests
DAVAO CITY – The father and two brothers of 12-year-old Mariannet Amper, who took her life last Nov. 2, tested negative in drug tests they underwent last Friday after an autopsy of her remains showed lacerations in her genitals, indicating that she was raped before she hanged herself.
Superintendent Matthew Baccay, Talomo police station chief, said Isabelo Amper and his sons, Isabelo Jr., 20, and Julito, 18, are the only males among the seven people in the family’s residence at Yniguez Subdivision in Sitio Bugac, Barangay Ma-a here.
Mayor Rodrigo Duterte earlier said concrete evidence was needed to pin down the one who had molested Mariannet, prompting her to commit suicide.
Amper was initially reported to have killed herself because of extreme poverty, until the autopsy revealed shallow- and deep-healed lacerations in her genitals, showing that she was sexually abused several times.
“We are really in a dilemma because what we have in our case is circumstantial evidence which could not be that strong in court. But the investigation is still ongoing. We shall get to the bottom of things,” Baccay said.
For his part, Duterte said, “It has been established that she had been raped. But the question of who did it to her remains to be answered and that is the subject of the ongoing criminal investigation. There is nothing we can do if there is no evidence.”
Duterte told The STAR the strength of the case would be based on the testimony of any witness in the sexual abuse against Mariannet or anyone to whom the young girl might have confided her ordeal.
He said poverty was not the reason why Mariannet committed suicide, but the sexual abuse she had experienced.
Duterte, however, said people should not be hasty in speculating as to who had abused the girl.
“In fairness to the family, we still have to find out who really did it,” he said.
Probers have also been talking to Mariannet’s teachers, classmates and friends at the Ma-a
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