By SIA LING XIN

A FILIPINO woman was found dead in a rented room yesterday morning after being stabbed, in the second murder involving stabbing here in the last three days.

The body of Ms Roselyn Pascua, 30, was found in a room that she had rented in a fifthfloor apartment in Peony Mansion in Bencoolen Street.

She had multiple stab wounds on her body and the left side of her chest.

Last Saturday, Mr Charles Gunalingam, 36, died after being stabbed in a drunken brawl in Toa Payoh.

Police said yesterday that both cases were not related.

my paper understands that Ms Pascua's body was found at about 3am by a man who is apparently the building's caretaker.

He had been doing his rounds when Ms Pascua's neighbour, who lives on the same floor, told him about noises coming from her room minutes earlier.

Photo: MY, Neo Xiaobin

He pushed open the unlocked door of her room - one of the apartment's eight rooms - and saw her lying face up in a pool of blood.

The woman with long hair was clad in a black top and black underwear.

my paper understands that there was no sign of forced entry.

Police are looking for three Filipino women and two Thai men to assist in investigations. They declined to say how the five people were related to Ms Pascua.

The building's residents whom my paper spoke to said they had not heard any suspicious sounds on Sunday night and early yesterday morning.

They did not know about the murder until the press showed up at about noon, they said.

Photo: MY, Neo Xiaobin

Stallholders in a coffee shop on the building's ground-floor said that the units there are rented mostly by foreigners from neighbouring countries such as Thailand, Vietnam and the Philippines, or Caucasian backpackers, who stay for only a few weeks.