Suspect in murder of two Australians and their companion at Philippine hotel surrenders to police | Philippines

Philippine authorities say a suspect in last week’s killings of two Australians and their Filipino companion has surrendered.

On July 10, a hotel worker discovered the bodies of three victims, their hands and feet bound, in a hotel room in the popular resort town of Tagaytay, south of Manila.

The victims were David James Fisk, a 57-year-old Sydney man, his partner, Lucita Barquin Cortez, 55, an Australian citizen of Filipino descent, and Cortez’s Filipino stepdaughter.

Tagaytay police chief Charles Daven Capagcuan told The Associated Press that the breakthrough in the weeks-old case came when at least three hotel employees identified the suspect based on his image captured by security cameras showing part of his face obscured.

Capagcuan said the identification of the suspect eventually led him to his home province of Batangas, near Tagaytay, where he decided to surrender.

Footage showed a man wearing a mask, a hoodie and carrying a shoulder bag leaving the victims’ bedroom hours before their bodies were discovered.

Tagaytay City Mayor Abraham Tolentino and Capagcuan presented the handcuffed suspect, wearing a hoodie, dark glasses and a face mask, at a press conference on Wednesday. The man’s name was not released.

The mayor reiterated his apologies to the victims’ relatives and to Australia for the “brutal crimes” that took place in his city.

“He wanted to get revenge on the hotel management for his dismissal,” Capagcuan told reporters, adding that the suspect worked as a pool cleaner at the hotel.

Authorities plan to file criminal charges of robbery in addition to murder against the suspect, who allegedly admitted to taking Fisk’s watch and shoes after attacking him with a knife and choking Cortez and his stepdaughter, Capagcuan said.

The couple had flown from Sydney to Bali for a holiday, then travelled to the Philippines on Monday to visit Cortez’s two children, and decided to take a short break in Tagaytay before returning to Australia, a relative of the woman said.

According to his LinkedIn profile, Fisk was a business development manager at Jiwa Financials, an Australian software company. He was previously a sales representative at Debtrak, a debt collection software company, and has had a long career in business technology.