pailin – A deputy village chief in Pailin municipality was axed to death Tuesday morning, said family members, eight of whom had been asleep beside the victim.
Ky Kim Ly, 48, a former Khmer Rouge soldier of O’Tal Ly village in Salaa Krao district’s Stung Kach commune, died in the municipal hospital at 8 am, his wife, Suon Vin, 40, said.
Ky Kim Ly, a card-carrying CPP supporter, had a deep cut that bisected his mouth and a skull-fracturing blow to his right temple.
Suon Vin, relatives and neighbors, suspect the attack was
the result of a dispute with a neighbor’s son over a goat and a dog.
“A few days before the attack, he had a verbal dispute with a military policeman’s son who was angry with him about our dog biting his goat that was eating our vegetables,” she said.
Then the boy went after the dog with a machete, she said.
“My husband told the boy, ‘Hey don’t chop him. It’s a dog. It doesn’t know anything,’” Suon Vin continued.
“Then the boy answered, ‘Oh, you are a strong man? I would stay in jail only one year if I killed a person.’”
A cousin of the victim, Nget Lab, 35, said she was sleeping next to Suon Vin when she “heard the sound of two chops.”
She said she saw a young man, ax in hand, dart from the house. Blood from the blade remained on the dirt road out front Tuesday afternoon. Police had covered it with a small metal bowl, weighted with a block of wood, to preserve it as evidence.
Pailin Deputy Police Chief Mok Chito said Wednesday police are investigating, but his department is aware of the dispute involving the dog and the goat, as well as a previous dispute over land.
“We are talking to witnesses and collecting evidence,” he said.
