Jacqueline Hamill was 35 years old, a Protestant missionary from the Christian City Church in Sydney, Australia.
Arriving in Manila on July 15, 1989, Jacqueline was part of Joyful Assemblies of God, a group that organised Bible study sessions inside prisons.
Jacquie arrived in Davao City two days after touching down in the Philippines.
On August 13, the group had just finished a Sunday service inside Davao Penal Colony when 15 prisoners from the prison gang Wild Boys of Davao led by Felipe Pugoy and Mohammad Nazir Samparani, disarmed the jail wardens on duty that day, taking the missionaries as hostages.
A stand-off ensued, ending two days later when Filipino soldiers stormed the jail. All 15 hostage-takers as well as five victims were killed in the shootout. Jacquie was among the victims.
No reports have definitively confirmed whether Jacquie was actually killed by her hostage takers or killed in the crossfire.
Of the aftermath, Wikipedia has this to say: “The survivors of the hostage crisis were put into military custody immediately after the crisis was resolved. Reporters were barred from interviewing the survivors raising speculation of a coverup. Brig. Gen. Mariano Baccay, one of the negotiators, said that the survivors were still recovering from shock caused by the incident. It was reported that photographers covering the event witnessed a soldier delivering a coup de grace to a wounded inmate hostage taker.”
Subsequently, an investigation concluded that “there were no efforts to maintain adequate security measures in the 80-inmate capacity detention facility. The small number of jail guards at the time of the hostage crisis led them to become “more familiar and easy” on the inmates. The team found that this led to the sole security guard, CIC Antonio Alcazar, to be compromised by the prisoners who took his M-16 ArmaLite rifle”.