Bekasi murder still unsolved

JAKARTA (JP): After six weeks of investigating, police are seeing a glimmer of light at the end of tunnel in the brutal killing of a married woman in Bekasi.

City police spokesman Lt. Col. Bambang Haryoko told The Jakarta Post over the weekend that local police have come up with a lead in their efforts to discover the killer of Sri Wahyuningsih, 29.

The housewife, known as Yuni, was strangled to death with a cloth found wrapped around her neck. Her mouth was gagged with another piece of cloth.

Her partially disrobed body was found at about 9 p.m. in the living room of their 36-square-meter house at the Pondok Ungu Permai housing complex in Bekasi, about 30 kilometers east of here, by her husband Bambang Indriawan, 33.

Bambang arrived home from work late in the evening as usual from his office in South Jakarta. He found the electricity in the whole complex off and his house unlocked.

As he entered the house, he stumbled over his wife's body. He then ran out of the house to seek help.

Even though several witnesses have given descriptions of a man police want to question as a suspect in the killing, little further progress has been made.

A food vendor near the scene of the crime, said he saw a man wearing a jacket and cap coming out of the house with something wrapped up in paper in his hands.

After failing to get a public bus at the corner of the street, the man dropped in at the vendor's food stall and asked for a bowl of noodles.

The street vendor told the police that the man appeared to be intelligent, adding that he did not look like a common laborer.

At the scene of the crime, police found a cigarette butt, a glass and a bottle of water on a table, indicating that the visitor might have been in the house for some time. Investigators also found a pair of women's underwear, believed to have belonged to the victim. Several spots thought to be seminal fluid were also found at different places in the house.

The police spokesman said the situation in the house seemed to indicate that the victim might have known her killer.

A reliable source told the Post that an old boyfriend often came to the house to ask for money while the victim's husband was at work.

Police are checking into the possibility that she was killed by a former boyfriend.

"But we cannot make such a hasty conclusion," the spokesman said. "The investigation is still underway," he said.

Police have yet to announce the results of the post mortem report from Cipto Mangunkusumo, which are expected to clarify whether Yuni was raped before being killed.

According to police findings, a radio-cassette player was missing from the house, but a purse with Rp 600,000 (US$268) in it was not disturbed. (bsr)