Ashes of Pinay murdered in West Virginia to be brought home

More than 10 years after her murder, the ashes of a Filipina immigrant who turned out to be murdered by her own husband in West Virginia will finally be brought home to the Philippines.

In a news release, the Philippine Embassy in Washington said the ashes of Karen Santillan-Tait will arrive in Manila this week and will be turned over to kin in Legazpi City.

Santillan-Tait, 23, was a mother of one. Her disappearance was discovered only last year, the embassy said.

Citing earlier news reports, the embassy said US authorities stumbled on her disappearance after her husband Thomas Neal Tait, 52, failed to account for her whereabouts while he was being investigated over "unrelated charges."

Authorities officially declared Santillan-Tait a missing person. A few months later, DNA samples collected from her family in the Philippines and daughter in the United States matched those of the remains of an Asian woman recovered at the Greenbrier State Forest in 2002.

Santillan-Tait’s husband pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and is now serving a 30-year prison term in West Virginia, the embassy said.

The Embassy thanked authorities in Waynesboro, West Virginia, for solving the case and putting Thomas Neal Tait behind bars.

“If not for their efforts, our kababayan would most likely remain nameless and her killer would still be on the loose,” Philippine Ambassador Jose Cuisia, Jr. said.

Cuisia cited the efforts of Prosecuting Attorney James Camblos III of the Office of the Commonwealth Attorney and case officer Corporal Alyssa Campbell of the Waynesboro Police Department.

“We thank them and the good people of Waynesboro for going out of their way to make sure that Karen can finally rest in peace with her loved ones in the Philippines,” he said.

Also, Cuisia said authorities and citizens of Waynesboro raised funds to cover the cost of the cremation, repatriation and burial of Santillan-Tait’s remains and other related expenses.

Consul General Ariel Peñaranda said the Embassy had been coordinating with Waynesboro authorities since October 2012, when the remains that have been in the custody of the West Virginia Medical Examiner’s Office since 2002 were identified as those of as Santillan-Tait. — LBG, GMA News

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