4 take lie tests on Aussie yacht designer’s murder

BAGUIO CITY, Philippines—Four people volunteered to undergo lie detector tests as police tried to solve the October 15 murder of an Australian yacht designer in his house in Itogon, Benguet, a police official said on Tuesday.

Chief Superintendent Benjamin Magalong, Cordillera police director, said police also recovered clothes with bloodstains in a shack near Joseph Allan Adams’ house in Alphaville Subdivision in Barangay Tuding in Itogon.

“We have subjected four people to a lie detector test. It will take two to three days to get the results … Our investigations are following several potential leads while [the Benguet police] pursue several courses of action,” Magalong said.

Bolo marks

Magalong led a case conference on Monday to study the progress of the investigation and to form a police task force devoted to the case.

Adams, 81, was found dead by a neighbor in his house on Oct. 15. His body bore stab and hack wounds.

Police said cuts to the victim’s palms and arms suggested that Adams fought off his assailant. They said the walls of his house bore hack marks possibly from a bolo, which led investigators to suspect that Adams had tried to flee.

An online report of Australia’s Sydney Morning Herald described Adams as the man behind the 1973 record-breaking victory of the 73-foot maxi, Helsal, in the prestigious Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race.

Adams had migrated to the Philippines 10 years ago when he married a Filipina, but he had lived alone in Itogon in a community composed of Australian expatriates in the last few years, police said.

Relatives awaited

Adams’ remains were taken to Funeraria Paz, a funeral home, here.

Alan de Guzman, the funeral home’s memorial service director, said officials expected Adams’ relatives to arrive here on Tuesday, but a telephone call from Australia advised them that the trip had been canceled.

De Guzman said Adams’ daughter, Leilani, informed the funeral home personnel that she had written the Philippine National Police for instructions as to when they could be allowed to claim her father’s body. Vincent Cabreza and Desiree Caluza, Inquirer Northern Luzon