Detectives hunt girl's killer

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)