Police face difficulties in tracing serial killer

JAKARTA (JP): The search for the main suspect in the serial killings of eight boys in the city is difficult work for police detectives, as they are lacking experience, evidence and information, an officer said.

"It's indeed a challenging task for us because we have never dealt with these kinds of killings," a senior city police detective, who requested anonymity, told The Jakarta Post on Saturday.

According to the officer, the shortage of material evidence and information in connection with the killings would make things difficult for law enforcers to even identify the suspect.

In another related development, East Jakarta Police Chief Lt. Col. Gories Mere, who also leads a special team to investigate the serial killings, urged the public to provide any helpful information to the police.

"What we really need is information from witnesses, especially those who saw the boys right before their deaths," Mere said on Saturday.

Eight boys between the ages of nine and 15 have been found dead over the past two years at the defunct Kemayoran airport in Central Jakarta and in Pondok Kopi, East Jakarta.

The victims, four of whom still remain unidentified, were found naked and half-naked with their stomachs torn out and throats wounded. In most cases, police found only a razor and the victims' clothes near the decomposed bodies.

Based on data from Cipto Mangunkusumo hospital's forensic department, the bodies were found with either L-, C-, or U-shaped wounds between 14 and 90 centimeters long on their stomachs.

"I think the suspect is telling us the story of Jack the Ripper," Mere once told the Post.

He said that all of the razors were of the same brand.

The first two victims were found dead in the Pondok Kopi area in April and December 1994 respectively. The next three were in March, July and September of last year, with the latest three in April, June and this month respectively.

"We're afraid that the suspect is looking for another victim," the detective said.

So far, police assumed that the suspect is a single person, a poor man and has sadistic, deviated sexual behavior.

"He actually is a heterosexual but being poor, he failed to get a woman and decided to take a simple way by having sex with the under-age street boys," head of the Jakarta police detectives, Col. Paimin AB speculated.

However, a witness for the latest case told police interrogators that he saw the boy being picked up by a thin man driving a car several days before the teenager was found dead.

Other police sources speculated that the suspect is a middle- class person.

"If he's poor, how could he bring the bodies to the places where the deceased were found?" said a detective.

According to preliminary police and forensic reports, no bloodstains were found at the locations, indicating that the boys were sodomized and killed at different places before being thrown in the bushes at Pondok Kopi and Kemayoran.

"This time, the public doesn't want to see the police arresting the wrong person again," said the anonymous source.

Last year, police arrested a man -- later identified as Vicky Randa, 25 -- accused of playing a certain role in the serial killings.

However, he admitted having anal sex with four children, none of whom were the victims. Vicky died while in police detention, weeks after his arrest.

Currently, at least five men have been detained by the police accused of sodomizing underage boys, most of whom are street children. (bsr)