MANILA (UPDATE) — A man accused of raping and killing an 8-year-old girl in Candelaria, Quezon was found dead inside a jail cell on Wednesday, police said.
Ricardo Burce, 55, was no longer breathing when a fellow inmate tried to wake him up. He was rushed to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead on arrival, the Candelaria police said in a spot report.
Burce did not have bruises or any other injury, which means he could have died in his sleep, said Candelaria police chief Lt. Col. Jezreel Calderon.
Police requested an autopsy of the suspect, he said.
Burce, a laborer, earlier confessed to abducting, raping and strangling to death an 8-year-old girl who was last seen by her family playing near their house last Jan. 6. The suspect said he was drunk when he committed the crime.
His death came a day after President Rodrigo Duterte reportedly ordered police to hunt down and neutralize an alleged "serial rapist" of children in Quezon.
- With reports from Zhander Cayabyab and Dennis Datu, ABS-CBN News