One year after the body of U.S. Peace Corps volunteer Julia Campbell was found, her confessed killer was convicted in the Philippines of her murder and meted a sentence of 40 years in prison without parole, media reports said on Tuesday. Juan Donald Duntugan, a 27-year woodcarver who killed the victim in April 2007, was also ordered by a local trial court to pay at least 39 million pesos (890,000 U.S. dollars) in damages to the family of the 40-year-old Campbell, the Philippine Star reported.
Duntugan had confessed to bludgeoning Campbell, 40, with a rock and a stick in a fit of rage when she accidentally bumped into him on a narrow mountain trail in the Philippines' northern province of Ifugao. Duntugan said he was upset from a spat with a neighbor. The murderer was not sentenced to death as death penalty has been banned in the country.
Duntugan and his wife have three children, including a less than one-year-old baby who was born during Duntugan's trial.
Duntugan's lawyers said that they will appeal the verdict to the Court of Appeals.
Campbell's elder sister Geary Morris said after the reading of the verdict that she harbored "no bad feelings" against the peopleof the province or the country, adding that it was "just a case ofa man who made a bad decision." U.S. Ambassador Kristie Kenney said she was "glad the case ended for all of us it's important now to move on."
She noted the arrival of a new group of 64 Peace Corps volunteers who will spend two years in the country.
The U.S embassy said the new volunteers comprise the 266th group of U.S. Peace Corps Volunteers to serve in the Philippines since 1961.
Source:Xinhua
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