German national found dead in hotel room

MANILA, Philippines—The decomposing body of a 69-year-old German national was discovered  inside his hotel room in Malate, Manila late Thursday afternoon, the police said.

Jurgen Albrecht Bruno Harder, a native of Berlin, was found in a seated position leaning against the bathroom wall of his room at the second floor of the Victoria Mansion, at the corner of Nakpil and Bocobo streets. His body was already in an advanced state of decomposition.

Police Officer 3 Alonzo Layugan, of the Manila Police District homicide section, ruled out foul play in the German tourist’s death in the absence of external injury on his body and theorized that he could have died from a heart attack.

Layugan said that the body was discovered at around 2 p.m. Thursday by hotel staff after Harder’s friend, Hans Joaquin, called them up and asked them to check on the elderly tourist because he had not been picking up his mobile phone nor replying to text messages.

Building administrator Margarita Escober and the hotel’s maintenance man Romel Vicera immediately proceeded to Harder’s room and used a duplicate key to open it after getting no response to their knocking.

The hotel staff found the body inside the bathroom and found some medicine scattered on a bedside table. They immediately reported the discovery to the police.

Layugan revealed that, based on the statements of the hotel staff, Harder has been their regular customer for eight years and was known to be suffering from a heart ailment. The German tourist checked into the hotel on August 25 and was last seen alive on August 30.

Harder’s body was brought to the St. Yvan funeral parlor for autopsy and homicide investigators have informed the German Embassy of his death.