A 30-year-old man has been arrested and charged with the rape of a 7-year-old girl in Kompong Chhnang province’s Samaki Meanchey district and is also the chief suspect in the rape and murder of the girl’s 10-year-old sister on the same day, authorities said Tuesday.
Yorn Mun was arrested on Friday and charged Sunday for the rape of the child, which is thought to have occurred on May 17, the same day her 10-year-old sister disappeared, Kompong Chhnang Provincial Court Prosecutor Penh Vibol said.
The body of the 10-year-old girl was found on May 19 in a bamboo grove 5 km from her home, and she was last seen leaving her house on May 17 to visit her grandmother, who lived 100 meters away. According to district police, she had been strangled to death, most likely around midday May 17.
“I charged the suspect with the rape of the 7-year-old girl first, but the 10-year-old girl’s rape case does not have enough evidence for charges,” the prosecutor said, adding that further investigation is needed in the 10-year-old’s case but that the suspect already confessed to raping the 7-year-old.
Provincial anti-human trafficking police chief Prak Soany said there was not yet enough evidence in the 10-year-old’s case because the girl’s body was too decomposed to be examined.
Choem Buntheun, chief of the provincial police’s serious crimes office, said the 7-year-old was raped on May 17 at around 3 pm while the suspect was pretending to be part of a search party looking for her 10-year-old sister who had disappeared earlier that day. While searching, the attacker told the victim’s mother that they should split up to look for her missing daughter, which left him alone with the 7-year-old.
Authorities discovered the rape of the 7-year-old girl while investigating the murder of her sister. Mr Buntheun said that after determining that the 10-year-old victim has been raped, authorities asked their mother about her younger daughter. He said the 7-year-old told her mother that Yorn Mun had raped her on May 17 but the mother did not report it to authorities because she was too busy looking for her missing elder daughter.
Mr Buntheun said that according to the victims’ family, the suspect was very close with both girls. He always visited them and they would walk around the village together, he said.
The suspect was not at home at the time of the 10-year-old’s disappearance and witnesses reported seeing the suspect around the area where the girl’s body was found on the day she disappeared.
“He is a suspect in the rape and death of the 10-year-old girl because he was very close with the victim,” Mr Buntheun said. “It is a very brutal case with the suspect committing two crimes in one day.”
