Missing state university staff found in Sultan Kudarat river, murdered

COTABATO CITY — A missing senior administrative staff of a state university was found dead in a shallow river in Bagumbayan town, Sultan Kudarat province on Wednesday.

The victim was shot in the head and has stab wounds in the neck.

The Sultan Kudarat Provincial Police Office and the Police Regional Office-12 separately confirmed on Thursday that the dead man found in a shallow portion of the Ala River in Barangay Biwang, Bagumbayan is Junie Imperio, first reported missing on Tuesday by his friends and relatives.

Imperio was a senior staff in the graduate school of the Sultan Kudarat State University in Tacurong City, also in Sultan Kudarat province.

He was last seen by neighbors leaving their village in Barangay Kalawag 2 in Isulan, the provincial capital of Sultan Kudarat, a day before he was found dead in a downstream stretch of the Ala River near the border of Isulan and Bagumbayan towns.

Imperio’s relatives and co-workers told reporters that his motorcycle is missing, now subject of search by barangay officials in Bagumbayan and the local police.