Autopsy Shows Murder In Peace Corps Death

Blows to the head killed a U.S. Peace Corps volunteer who was found buried in a shallow grave in a northern Philippine mountain village, officials said Saturday after an autopsy.

Julia Campbell, 40, of Fairfax, Virginia, suffered "multiple blunt traumatic injuries of the head," police Chief Inspector Mamerto Bernabe, a pathologist who headed the autopsy, told reporters at a suburban funeral parlor.

Bernabe, assistant chief of the medico-legal division of the national police crime laboratory, said Campbell sustained "plenty" of injuries on the face and the top of the head.

"This only means that her death wasn't an accident," crime laboratory head Chief Superintendent Arturo Cacdac told The Associated Press.

He said Campbell's arms also were injured, indicating that she tried to block the blows.

Campbell's remains were immediately turned over to the Peace Corps after the six-hour autopsy, which was observed by U.S. forensic experts, he said.

"During the debriefing, the U.S. experts concurred with our own experts," he said.

Cacdac said a full report will be submitted to national police chief Oscar Calderon. It may take up to three weeks to obtain results from DNA test on samples taken from "critical" parts of Campbell's body, including her fingernails, he added.

Campbell's body was found buried in a shallow grave Wednesday, 10 days after she went missing during a solo hike in the village of Batad in Banaue township to see the area's famed mountainside rice terraces.

Regional police commander Chief Superintendent Raul Gonzales said the autopsy showed whoever was responsible "made sure she was dead."

Senior Superintendent Pedro Ganir, police chief of Ifugao province, which includes Banaue, said police recovered a bloodstained pole used to pound rice made of hard wood near the residence of a suspect, who has gone into hiding.

Investigators said that a witness claimed he saw the man in the area of the grave where Campbell's body was found on Wednesday, 10 days after she went missing.

The suspect has been identified as the husband of the woman who sold Campbell a Coca-Cola before she proceeded with her hike in the remote area — a World Heritage site — in Ifugao province, about 160 miles north of Manila.

The woman, however, told GMA television her husband was not in Batad when Campbell disappeared.

Ganir earlier said investigators were looking into "robbery with homicide or rape with homicide" — common motives when women disappear in the country.

Stacy Mactaggert, a U.S. Embassy spokeswoman, said Campbell's remains would be brought home to her family in the United States as soon as legal requirements, such as a death certificate, are completed.

Campbell — a freelance journalist who had reported for The New York Times, ABCNews.com, Court TV and other media organizations — left 136 other Peace Corps volunteers in the Philippines. She had been teaching English at the Divine Word College in Albay province's Legazpi city, southeast of Manila, since October 2006.

She also helped launch an ecology awareness campaign and build an Eco Center in Donsol in Sorsogon province, famous for whale sharks.

Residents of the mountain town of Banaue, many of whom depend on tourism dollars for their income, are angry over news of the murder. Many speaking to local media said that the assailant not only killed one person but also damaged the economic life of countless families.

"It's a shame. May God forgive the person who did this crime, as he or she did not consider the consequences of his or her action on all of us," innkeeper Esberta Terrado told the Philippine Daily Inquirer.

In the Brooklyn neighborhood where she lived prior to joining the Peace Corps, news of Campbell's death hit hard.

Looking through old photo albums and pictures, Ron Hernandez and Michael Rycheck found it difficult to believe they would never see their best friend and neighbor again.

"A lot of people have been praying and I am so happy they found her so they can bring her home," her friend Michael Rycheck told WCBS-TV correspondent Deborah Garcia.

Candles now illuminate the entrance of the building where she lived.

Meanwhile, Campbell's family is making arrangements for her funeral in Virginia.

Campbell was planning to return home this summer and attend graduate school at NYU in the fall. Instead, her friends will be planting a memorial tree in their neighborhood and holding a service.