Women killed after marriage proposal

JAKARTA (JP): Holding back tears and looking down at the floor, the confessed killer of the woman whose dismembered body was found in two separate places last week revealed the bizarre murder to reporters yesterday.

Uki Wardana, 24, told a flock of crime reporters that he killed, mutilated and dumped the body of his girlfriend, Rahayu Chaeranti, also known as Butet, 29, all by himself.

The suspect, who claimed to be a first sergeant in the Air Force, said he decided to kill the girl who had been going out with him for about two years, because he was unprepared to marry her.

"I was very scared. She said her period was late. She said she was pregnant. She was pushing me to marry her," Uki told the media at the East Jakarta Police station.

According to Uki, the murder took place at his boardinghouse on Jl. Yusufyah in Lubang Buaya, East Jakarta on Friday afternoon when the victim kept on insisting that he marry her.

Surrounded by police officers, the depressed-looking man refused to answer most of the reporters' numerous questions.

"I felt terrible," was all he could finally say.

When asked whether he was motivated to commit the sadistic murder by a similar horror killing of another woman, whose body was found in Tangerang the previous week, Uki grimly said, "It's my fault."

Uki, or Luki as police named him in their report, was arrested at his boardinghouse (not at a security post near Halim Perdanakusuma airbase as reported earlier) at 9:30 p.m. Tuesday based on information given by Butet's relatives, who had identified the remains at Cipto Mangunkusumo General Hospital several hours earlier.

Parts of Butet's body were first found, without the head, neck, legs or hands, on Saturday morning floating in a fishpond in Pondok Ranggon, Cipayung, also in East Jakarta.

The remaining body parts were found Monday at about 11:30 a.m. in bushes some 200 meters from a runway at the Halim Perdanakusuma airbase by two Air Force patrol officers.

According to city police spokesman Lt. Col. E. Aritonang, Uki told police interrogators that he killed her with a machete, which measured about five centimeters by 30 centimeters long.

"At about 2 p.m. Luki murdered the girl and dismembered her body two hours later.

He took a cab to dump the first body pieces in Pondok Ranggon later that night, Aritonang told reporters separately yesterday.

"The remaining pieces of her body (head, feet and hands) were dumped at Halim Perdanakusuma on the next morning at about 2 a.m.," he added.

The case is being handled by East Jakarta Police station.

Uki's status in the Air Force was still being checked, according to City Police Chief Maj. Gen. Noegroho Djajoesman.

"He told the police that he is in the Air Force. We're currently checking his background. If it is true (that he's a member of the Armed Forces) the case will be handed over to the military police," Noegroho told reporters yesterday.

He did not reveal why the police should have spent quite a long time only checking the suspect's status.

The unofficial reenactment of the killing was carried out at 2 a.m. Monday at the scene of the crime in Lubang Buaya.

Meanwhile, forensic experts from Cipto Mangunkusumo were trying yesterday to put Butet's body back together before her burial.

Bambang H.P., one of the forensic staff, said that the body could not be well joined as some was still missing.

According to Eduardsyah, the victim's uncle, the remains would be buried yesterday evening at Pondok Kelapa public cemetery in East Jakarta.

He said that Butet's parents died several years ago and she lived with her uncle, Razali, on Jl. Gunung Slamet at Mas Naga housing complex at Bintara Jaya, West Bekasi.

Eduardsyah said he and his other relatives had met Uki at the police precinct and confirmed that the suspect was Butet's boyfriend.

"I do not bear any grudge for the murder, because I don't know the suspect very well. It was Butet's fate," he said.

Eduardsyah recalled the days when he and the other relatives were painfully searching for Butet.

He said the family remained suspicious after viewing the mutilated body on Sunday for identification purposes because the identifying marks which could have been recognized by her relatives were all on the missing body parts.

Butet had surgery marks on her neck and a dog bite mark on her lower leg, he said.

They were sure it was Butet's body only after they came again on Monday evening following the finding of the missing parts. (edt/ivy)