RIYADH, 13 March 2005 — The remains of a 37-year-old Filipino housemaid who was murdered a year ago had finally been sent home, thanks to the governor of Riyadh.
Nelsa Tirano Villarta’s dismembered body was repatriated to Manila on March 4 on board a Saudi Airlines flight with the help of Prince Salman and other local authorities, Minister Mariano A. Dumia, charge d’affaires of the Philippine Embassy, told Arab News yesterday.
According to a report of the embassy to the Department of Foreign Affairs in Manila, the native of Libungan municipality in the southern province of North Cotabato, arrived in the Kingdom on Nov. 1, 2002 to work as housemaid for a Saudi family.
Villarta had worked in Hong Kong before she came to Saudi Arabia.
On March 21, 2004, the maid’s body was found by the police in Riyadh’s Nasseem neighborhood, two days after her employer reported her missing.
Quoting police, the embassy report said the body was stuffed in a garbage bag with the head detached and legs missing. It was brought to the Riyadh Medical Complex (RMC) for autopsy. Police recovered the missing legs near the place where the body was found on March 28.
The body was marked for some time as “unknown dead body no. 1913” until embassy representatives brought OFW Jun Tancio, a relative of the victim, to the RMC to check.
Tancio recognized the head and said it belonged to Villarta after examining the mouth and teeth, said the report.
Forensic experts established that the victim died on March 18, 2004, a day before she was reported missing.
The police have tagged an Afghan gardener, Jawhar Said Nostrayan, as main suspect in Villarta’s murder, but the case have yet to be resolved, said the embassy report. No mention was made whether the suspect and the victim worked for the same employer.
Minister Dumia called for the early resolution of the case to give justice to the victim’s husband Ricardo.
