In the midst of Typhoon Krising’s relentless downpour on July 21, 2025, a grim discovery was made in a quiet, grassy area in Barangay Bani, Bayambang, Pangasinan. The body of a young woman, still clad in a medical uniform, lay abandoned on the rain-soaked ground. With no identification, she was a Jane Doe, a tragic and anonymous victim of a violent storm.

But as her image began to circulate on social media, a story of a bright young life, a secret relationship, and a devastating betrayal began to emerge. The woman was 24-year-old Ferlin Rada, a registered nurse from Zamboanga del Sur, and her presence in a remote field hundreds of kilometers from her home in Taguig was the start of a chilling mystery that would lead investigators to the door of a man sworn to protect the public.

Ferlin Rada was the embodiment of a Filipina’s dream. Born in Zamboanga del Sur, she was driven by a passion to help others, a dream that led her to graduate from Our Lady of Fatima University with a nursing degree.

Like so many ambitious young professionals, she moved to the bustling metropolis of Metro Manila to build her career, landing a job as a radiologic technologist at a hospital in Taguig. She was independent, hardworking, and deeply connected to her family, speaking with them regularly and supporting them from afar. Her life was on a bright and promising trajectory.

The last time her family heard from her was on the afternoon of July 20, 2025. In a brief chat, she told her sister she was doing fine. She had told her coworkers at the hospital that she planned to visit her older sister in Caloocan the next day. That was the last they heard. When she failed to show up for her shift on Tuesday, her colleagues, unable to reach her, called her sister, who was shocked to learn Ferlin had never arrived.

The mystery of her whereabouts was tragically solved when her seaman boyfriend saw a viral social media post about the unidentified woman found in Pangasinan. He immediately contacted Ferlin’s family, and their worst fears were confirmed. The journey to a morgue in Pangasinan ended with the painful identification of their beloved Ferlin. The initial mystery—who was this woman?—was solved. A more horrifying one had just begun: how did she get here, and who was responsible for this brutal act?

The investigation, a joint effort between the Bayambang Municipal Police and the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG), faced a daunting geographical challenge, requiring them to travel back and forth between the crime scene in Pangasinan and the victim’s life in Taguig.

The forensic evidence was clear: she had not been stabbed, as was initially thought. A shell casing found at the scene and the autopsy report confirmed she had been ended by a single, close-range gunshot wound that pierced her chest. The key to the case, however, would not come from a traditional clue, but from the silent, digital witnesses that line the streets of the modern Philippines: CCTV cameras.

In a meticulous process of backtracking, investigators pieced together a chilling timeline of Ferlin’s final hours. Footage showed her leaving her apartment for her hospital duty on the morning of July 20. She was seen returning that afternoon.

But another camera revealed a crucial detail: a man on a motorcycle had been waiting outside her apartment building. He was her neighbor, a 31-year-old police officer assigned to the NCRPO in Taguig.

At around 5:00 p.m., another camera captured Ferlin getting onto the back of the officer’s motorcycle. This was the beginning of her final, fateful journey. Instead of a short trip to Caloocan, the cameras tracked their long, northward ride. At 9:00 p.m., they were spotted passing through Bayambang, Pangasinan, heading toward the area where her body would later be found.

The final piece of the digital puzzle was the most damning: later footage captured the motorcycle again, but this time, the police officer was riding alone.

The witness testimony of a local resident, who saw a man and a woman arguing in a waiting shed near the crime scene during the storm, added a human element to the cold, digital trail. The evidence was overwhelming. The police officer, whose name has been withheld pending trial, was taken into custody.

The investigation then turned to the crucial question of motive. As detectives dug into the relationship between the nurse and the officer, two powerful and overlapping motives emerged. The first was a crime of passion. The suspect was a married man, a fact that Ferlin may have recently discovered or was threatening to expose.

Her family and boyfriend deny that she and the officer were in a relationship, but the long journey to Pangasinan suggests a level of intimacy and trust that went beyond a simple friendship. Police believe a heated argument, as described by the witness, escalated to a tragic and violent conclusion.

The second motive was financial. Investigators learned that Ferlin, in addition to her nursing job, also ran a small, informal moneylending business for friends and colleagues. The suspect, it was discovered, owed her a significant and growing amount of money. The pressure of this debt, combined with the potential exposure of his affair, may have created a desperate and volatile situation.

The final, irrefutable piece of evidence came from the ballistics lab. The test confirmed that the shell casing found at the crime scene was a perfect match for the suspect’s service firearm.

The man who had taken an oath to “serve and protect” was now facing charges of ending a life and grave misconduct. The case of Ferlin Rada is a devastating tragedy, a story of a bright young woman whose dreams were cut short, and a chilling reminder of the dark secrets that can hide behind a friendly face and a trusted uniform.