Kratie provincial police sent a 32-year-old man to court on Sunday after he was arrested for robbing and killing a female neighbour in Roka Thom village, in Prek Prasap district’s Chroy Banteay commune on Thursday.
Provincial police serious crime chief Huot Lim Heang said on Sunday that after questioning the suspect over the case, they sent him to court for further legal action.
“The suspect robbed the woman of money and jewellery, then killed her and escaped.
"We sent him to the court on a charge of committing murder,” Lim Heang said.
Prek Prasap district police chief Chan Sophalla said the woman – Chhum Nay Sim, 39 – and her husband had a six-year-old daughter and they were farmers in Roka Thom village.
The husband told the police that his wife was herding cattle behind their home in the village and she failed to return home for lunch, making the family concerned for her welfare.
When she still did not return home in the evening, her husband and neighbours went looking for her, but did not find her.
Sophalla said the next morning, someone spotted the victim's body about a few hundred metres from her home.
The police confirmed that 560,000 riel and a pair of platinum earrings belonging to the victim were missing, which they found and confiscated from the suspect.
After examining the body, police identified the suspect and managed to arrest him on Friday at his house, which is located about 1km from the victim’s.
“She was beaten to death with a stick. Some of her teeth were broken and there are bruises on her jaw and chest,” he said.
The suspect confessed that he saw the woman looking after the cattle alone in the forest while carrying a purse, so he killed and robbed her of the money and jewellery.
