Detectives hunt girl's killer

BEKASI, West Java (JP): Bekasi police vowed to arrest a man they believed to have raped and killed a 13-year-old school girl, whose body was found in a vacant house here over the weekend.

"We are sending detectives to other cities to hunt the alleged killer of Wahyu Ekowati," Bekasi Police Chief Lt. Col. Alex Bambang Riatmodjo said yesterday.

Alex declined to go into details.

Another source at the police precinct said, however, that the suspect was a neighbor of the victim. He is being hunted because his name is recorded in the victim's diary as her boyfriend.

Police have been unable to locate the man since Wahyu was reported missing on Aug. 19.

According to neighbors, the man has relatives in Solo, Central Java.

The victim's father said he reported Wahyu as missing to police on Aug. 20 after he could not find her in relatives' residences.

Wahyu's body was found after local residents complained about a bed smell coming out of a vacant house in the newly constructed Taman Tridaya Indah housing complex, around 1 kilometer away from her home.

Police officers discovered Wahyu's decomposed body lying on the floor in the vacant house, her mouth gagged by a piece of cloth, 11 days after being reported missing by her father.

A police officer said that the girl was still wearing her junior high school uniform when found. Police believed that the girl had been raped before being killed. (kod)