A 14-year-old girl who went missing from her house in Kampot province on Friday was found raped and murdered on Saturday, police said on Sunday, adding that they had yet to identify any suspects in their ongoing investigation.
Nob Chanpheap, deputy Toek Chhou district police chief, said Chong Srey Leak left her house by bicycle at 6:30 a.m. on Friday to attend classes at the Rongchak Simorng secondary school in Kandorl commune. According to other students, she left school at about 8 a.m. because her teacher was absent, he said.
“At about 9 a.m. when her grandmother came back to their house from selling noodles in the village, she could not find her granddaughter,” Mr. Chanpheap said. “She found only her bag, bicycle and school uniform underneath the stilt house.”
The grandmother immediately notified police and asked neighbors to help find the girl. The search ended the next day at 1:30 p.m., when villagers found the teenager’s naked body in the forest about 500 meters from her house, he said.
“Based on the examination and investigation of the scene, police concluded that the victim was raped and murdered,” the deputy police chief said, adding that officers believed Chong Srey Leak was forcefully taken from the house, as her shoes were left behind and separated from her other belongings.
“After investigating the scene, we found that the victim was raped and then strangled to death because there was serious bruising on her neck and signs that she had struggled,” Mr. Chanpheap said, adding that the girl’s clothes were found about 3 meters from her body.
Lok Nhav, deputy chief of the provincial police’s serious crimes bureau, said police had yet to identify any suspects and were still investigating.
