Police identify suspect killer of street boys
Police identify suspect killer of street boys
JAKARTA (JP): After three weeks of investigation, the East
Jakarta police have identified the man suspected of killing and
mutilating eight street boys in Jakarta.
"The hunt for the suspect, who is also from the street
community, has begun," City Police Spokesman Lt. Col. Iman
Haryatna told The Jakarta Post yesterday.
But the officer refused to provide the identity of the
suspect. Some police sources have said the suspect's alias is
Robot.
After finding the body of the latest victim, 11-year-old
Kasikin, in Pondok Kopi, East Jakarta, on July 5, a special
police team arrested at least four homeless men, aged between 30
and 60 years.
The four, who are still detained at the East Jakarta police
precinct, have been accused of sodomizing several street boys.
One of the four men told police interrogators that he saw
Kasikin going with the suspect before he was murdered.
Other leads have come from the dozens of street children that
the police have detained and questioned for having allegedly been
sexually abused.
Based on these leads and forensic reports, the police began
reconstructing the serial murders.
On Thursday, the police boarded some cargo trains which pass
through Kemayoran, Central Jakarta, and Pondok Kopi to see if it
was possible for the suspect to carry the bodies and throw them
off the trains.
The decomposed bodies of the eight boys, aged between nine and
15, were found in different places in Kemayoran or Pondok Kopi.
The trains, which also operate early morning, link Bekasi in
the east and Tanjung Priok in the north.
Head of the East Jakarta police detectives, Maj. Endang
Sunjaya, who led the train investigation, has refused to comment
on whether the suspect used the cargo trains to carry the bodies.
The police are yet to find the suspects' home where he
allegedly sodomized the boys.
Like many other vagabonds in the city, the suspect is believed
to have moved frequently in Central Jakarta.
Noted forensic scientist Abdul Mun'im Idries recently reported
that the suspect had strangled the victims and then sliced their
stomachs open at the locations where the bodies were found.
Judging from the wounds on the victims' necks, the senior
forensic scientist said that the suspect was strong.
The victims, four of whom remain unidentified, were found
naked or semi-naked with their stomachs torn out. In most cases,
the police found a razor, a cigarette butt and the victims'
clothes near the decomposed bodies.
The bodies were found with L, C or U-shaped wounds on their
stomachs. The wounds were between 14 and 90 centimeters long.
The serial killings have challenged the Jakarta police because
such cases are rare in Indonesia.
Dozens of plainclothes police detectives were deployed
yesterday to search street people's huts for the suspect.
To allow the police detectives to proceed with their
investigation smoothly, spokesman Iman urged the media to avoid
reporting the details of the current police findings.
"There are a lot of examples where our work has become useless
because the media hasn't helped us by not revealing details,"
Iman said. (bsr)
Editorial -- Page 4