According to 7News, on January 1st, 23-year-old flight attendant, Christine Dacera, was found dead in her bathtub in the Philippines. Dacera was attending her New Year’s Eve party the night prior and was last seen on the hotel’s hallway footage at 4:13 a.m., after being carried to her room by her friend, Dela Serna. First discovered by Gregorio “Gigo” de Guzman at 10 AM in her bathroom, her wrists, ankles, thighs, and various parts of her body had slight bruising, which caused the media and Dacera’s family to question whether foul play was involved or not.

So, what happened that night leading up to her death?

According to BBC News, Dacera hosted a New Year’s Eve party in room 2209 of the City Garden Grand Hotel in Makati Avenue corner Kalayaan Avenue in Makati City, where guests were asked to bring their own food and beverages. Because of this, there has been speculation that Dacera’s drink was spiked and could have triggered the aneurysm, ultimately causing her death, but her autopsy report states that “no alcohol or recreational drugs taken the night prior to her death will cause that kind of dilatation or defect on her aorta.”

Moreover, the party was “a gathering of gay men,” as de Guzman described. He was invited by his ex-boyfriend, Rommel Galido, a fellow PAL flight attendant, and said that all the men were flirting with each other; Christine was the “odd woman out.” Like Galido, most of those at the party were stewards and Dacera’s colleagues at PAL, indicating that Dacera was familiar with these men and their sexual orientation.

At around 10 AM of New Year’s Day, de Guzman discovered Dacera’s body in the bathtub and thought that she was sleeping so failed to check in until noon of the same day. When he noticed that Dacera’s body felt lifeless, he called the hotel front desk for help. Immediately, the hotel manager and chief of hotel security came to the room with a wheelchair to prompt Dacera’s body in. De Guzman says that her “limp body fell many times from the wheelchair and the hotel security and manager kept bringing her upright.” This would explain the bruises later found on her right hand, right thigh, right ankle, right foot, left knee, and left ankle—the same ones that Dacera’s family said could indicate foul play. When Dacera arrived at the hospital she was pronounced dead, and her case became an internet sensation, especially on the TikTok app.

One user on TikTok (@maddieraea) shows Dacera and captions “this is Christine Dacera. 11 men raped her.” Due to the uproar from social media (pitying her alleged ‘gang rape’ and gawking at her attractive features), Dacera’s social media account, @xtinedacera has reached nearly 204,000 on Instagram and 915,000 on TikTok. Though the case has spread awareness on sexual assault, the misinformation has harassed and tainted the reputation of those at the party, even though they had no involvement in her death.

The autopsy is black and white, but the investigation is still ongoing. Though the victim’s family claims that “foul play” was involved in her death, her official autopsy states that she was neither raped nor assaulted the night of her death. This two-page autopsy states, “Hymen: Presence of deep healed lacerations (underscoring mine—RT) at the 3, 6, and 9 o’clock position…Anus: no evident signs of injury noted at the time of examination.”

This indicates that the healed wound in her vagina had no forced entry near or during her time of death. Additionally, there was no presence of semen, which would have been a definitive sign of rape or sexual assault if perpetrators committed such a crime (this of course does not mean that to be sexually assaulted an individual must have semen on them). Though this autopsy report is online and can be quite easily accessed through corresponding articles and sources, Dacera’s death is most known as the result of unfortunate gang rape and homicide. This false information stems from the initial report of the Philippine National Police (PNP), which stated that Dacera was raped. Because this is the first report of her that was released to the public, it explains why users promoting her case (who would not dig too deep into it), could possibly spread misleading information. Compared to the initial report from the PNP, the autopsy from the Southern Police District Crime Laboratory contradicts this alleged rape conclusively, as autopsies cannot lie.

The actual cause of death for Dacera “happened in the aorta that the continuous increase in her blood pressure within it (aorta) further weakened that defect and eventually burst,” the PNP Crime Laboratory report stated. “The moment there was a tear in the aorta, blood loss will occur and the patient is expected to feel various symptoms like weakness, nausea, and diaphoresis that can explain why she was feeling weird and unlike the feeling of a hangover from previous drinking sessions…the loss of blood due to the ruptured aorta killed her within a few hours,” it added.

This means that Dacera had a rupture in her aortic aneurysm, which would enlarge the lower part of the major vessel (aorta) that supplies blood throughout one’s body. This vessel runs from an individual’s heart through the chest and abdomen. Because the aorta is the largest vessel in the body, when it ruptures, an individual can lose an immense amount of blood and potentially be fatal, as in this case. Furthermore, it was noted that Dacera’s dilatation (aneurysm) was not a recent thing—it started “a long time ago.”

The report stated that “dilatation is a chronic condition and was present long before she died. If she did not die that fateful night, she will still die in any scenario that presents an activity that will increase her blood pressure strong enough to tear that aneurysm.” Her autopsy also revealed that Dacera’s heart weighed approximately 500 gm, contrary to the 300 gm of a healthy one—fueling more evidence “that supports Dacera’s apparently undiagnosed hypertension,” the report said.

For the most part, it can be confirmed that Dacera’s death is from natural causes, but the widespread misinformation has brought shame and harassment to those at the party, as they were labeled as the perpetrators. For example, de Guzman is the son of 1970’s “jukebox queen,” Claire de La Funte, and states that his involvement in her death (which only consisted of helping her), has tainted his “mother’s legacy” and that the media will never let him “recover” his image.

Ultimately, Dacera’s case serves as a prime example of when the media spreads misinformation and how that can influence the public as well as impact those involved.