Philippines officials reveal alleged motive in killings of trio found dead in hotel room

A disgruntled hotel pool cleaner killed two Australians and their Filipina relative as a way to get back at his former employer, officials say.

David Fisk, 57, his partner Lucita Cortez, 55, along with Cortez’s daughter-in-law Mary Jane Cortez, 30, were found dead with their hands and feet tied, sprawled on the floor in a room at the Lake Hotel in Tagaytay city last week.

Tagaytay Police Chief Charles Daven Capagcuan alleged the former employee wanted revenge.

“He wanted to get back at the hotel management for his dismissal,” Capagcuan told reporters.

He said the unnamed suspect had worked as a swimming pool cleaner but was fired by the hotel in March after he was linked to a robbery in one of the rooms.

Police officials plan to file criminal complaints of robbery in addition to the killings against the suspect.

Capagcuan said the suspect acknowledged taking the watch and shoes of the Australian male victim after attacking him with a knife and suffocating his partner and her daughter-in-law.

“He barged randomly with a knife into the room because its window was open,” Capagcuan said.

The Australian woman and her daughter-in-law are to be buried in their family’s home province in the Philippines while the remains of the Australian man would be flown back to Sydney, according to AP.

The Australian couple had planned to fly back to Australia on July 10, the day they were killed, but decided to briefly take a vacation in Tagaytay, the Filipino son of the slain Australian-Filipino woman said.

Police had launched a manhunt for the killer of the trio last week.

Capagcuan told the AP that the breakthrough in the week-old case came when the suspect was identified by at least three hotel employees from security camera footage.

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

— With AP