Progress made in investigation of brutal killing

JAKARTA (JP): City Police Chief Maj. Gen. Dibyo Widodo proudly announced yesterday that the investigation of Monday's brutal killing has made remarkable progress, but he declined to reveal the identities of any suspects.

Police determined two strong possible motives: a love affair or a land dispute, one of which led to the brutal killing of a 31-year-old housewife and her three young children, he said here yesterday.

"We've come to a provisional conclusion that the motive for the murder is not robbery."

The two-star general, however, declined to go into detail, saying that the police are still collecting valuable information. He made the statements after a meeting on the murder case with his staff.

The police are also studying the possible role of the Rohadi, who was the woman's husband and a teacher at several high schools, in the killing.

"As police officers we have to suspect everybody," he said. "Later, we'll cross the suspected persons off the list if we find they are innocent."

Housewife Eli and three of her children, aged two, four and eight, were found dead with severe stab wounds. Their bodies were discovered by Eli's eldest daughter at their small house in the Bambu Apus subdistrict of Ciracas, East Jakarta, on Monday afternoon.

Dibyo said that the police have not yet arrested or named anyone as the suspect in the killing.

"We're still questioning a number of people but no single arrest has been made so far," he said.

However, it is strongly believed that some of the suspected killers and the alleged mastermind have been identified and are now under police surveillance.

"What we badly need now is strong material evidence to name them as the suspects," said a police detective.

Apart from fingerprints and blood, police found no valuable material evidence at the scene of crime.

Police are also waiting for the post-mortem examination of the four bodies from the hospital, and the results of fingerprints examinations from the National Police Forensic Laboratory.

But Dibyo guaranteed: "This case will be solved in a matter of days."

According to several detectives, the original target of the murderers was Eli. However, the killers had no choice due to the presence of the three innocent children.

Eli's husband, Rohadi, was informed by the police of the deaths while teaching at a high school in West Jakarta at around 5 p.m. on the day of the killing.

A colleague of his at a school in Tangerang said that Rohadi was not in good health that Monday morning and later decided to cancel a test scheduled for his students.

Rohadi left the school half an hour before the police arrived and told his friend that he was going to teach at another school in Cibinong.

One of his students, however, said that his teaching schedule at that school was not on Monday but Tuesday.

Despite going to Cipto Mangunkusumo General Hospital on Tuesday, Rohadi left the hospital without seeing the remains of his wife and three children.

Rohadi teaches economics, Arabic and Pancasila ideology at four different schools.

His colleagues said that Rohadi is a nice and friendly man, though his neighbors said they knew nothing of his family as they just moved to the neighborhood eight months ago.

According to the neighbors, Rohadi usually left home early in the morning and returned home after 7 p.m. in the evening.

Eli, they said, was a housewife who was busy looking after her five children. (bsr)