A man was arrested in Kampong Thom province on Wednesday after he allegedly hacked his ex-mother-in-law to death at 2am in Baray district’s Balaing commune. Police said he confessed to the murder during questioning.
Kampong Thom province’s felony office head Chak Chanret said on Thursday that the 28-year-old suspect killed Duong Kheang, 51, a window who was a rice noodle vendor in Balaing commune.
Chanret said that in the early hours of Wednesday morning, Kheang’s neighbours heard screaming from her six-year-old granddaughter, who was sitting outside on the house’s steps.
The neighbours and other villagers went to investigate and, seeing blood under the victim’s house, immediately went inside and found Kheang dead in a pool of blood.
After the police were informed, Chanret said, his police officers went to inspect the scene and found the woman had six wounds on her head and seven on her body.
He said because the victim’s family was very poor, the police assumed that it was not a robbery but could have been a case of vengeance.
After collecting information, the police called the victim’s former son-in-law in for questioning.
Although the suspect had divorced Kheang’s daughter – and she had moved to Thailand to work – he had continued to live with the victim’s family, Chanret said.
He said that during questioning on Wednesday, the suspect admitted to holding a grudge against his mother-in-law because she had consistently refused to try and persuade her daughter to accept him back as her husband.
Consequently, Chanret said, the suspect came to the house with an axe at about 2am on Wednesday morning and hacked Kheang to death while she was sleeping.
“The man was arrested because he admitted that he killed his former mother-in-law because of revenge. We took a sample of his urine and tested it, but it didn’t contain any addictive substances at all,” he said.
Chanret said the suspect was being detained at Baray district police station before being sent to Kampong Thom provincial police station to put together a case to send to the provincial court.
