Woman dies from stab wounds in her house

TANGERANG (JP): A 40-year-old woman was found dead with stab wounds in a bedroom at her residence on Jl. Borobudur No. 122 at the Perumnas Karawaci housing complex here on Tuesday.

The woman was identified as Tjhia Yen Setiawan alias A. Cen, a food distributor at Malabar market in the complex. The mother of two was believed to have died from severe wounds to her neck.

No information on the motive of the killing was available.

The local police questioned A. Cen's husband, Arfan Chandra, 50, after they spotted blood stains on his shirt and trousers.

The police said the ceiling of a passageway in the house had been broken and suggested that the murderer may have entered and escaped through this route. No valuables were missing from the house.

Arfan told the police that his clothes were stained with blood when he went to assist his wife after chasing after her killer.

"We are still trying to establish if he is telling the truth," said an officer who requested anonymity.

He said that Arfan had not been named as a suspect because they had found no evidence to suggest that he was the killer.

The officer said the reaction of police dogs brought to the scene of the crime to attempt to track the killer suggested that the woman may have been killed by a member of her own family.

A. Cen's body was found on Tuesday morning by her eldest son, Jemi, 16, who heard his mother scream shortly before making the discovery.

When Jemi opened the bedroom door, he saw his mother lying in a pool of blood. As he opened the door, his father emerged from another bedroom, crying loudly and saying that he had just missed the killer.

A. Cen's body was taken to Tangerang General Hospital for a postmortem examination. (ivy/41)