A 30-year-old man accused of molesting a neighbor’s daughter during a bath went on a rampage in which he fatally beat a toddler with a brick and injured the child’s mother and two siblings in Battambang province, police said.
Prak Phalla confronted her neighbor about 8:30 p.m. on Thursday after her 11-year-old daughter cried out for help from the bathroom beside their home in Santepheap commune’s Kilo 13 village, said Pich Saren, police chief for Sampov Loun district.
“When the girl was taking a bath in the room, the suspect hugged and kissed her,” and her cries alerted her mother, Mr. Saren said on Friday.
The suspect became furious after Ms. Phalla, 30, accused him of molesting her daughter and attacked the mother and girl with a brick, then ran into their stilt house and killed a month-old baby girl and injured a 4 year-old boy who had been steeping under mosquito net, Mr. Saran said.
According to the national police website, the suspect, identified only as Sey, remained at large on Friday.
“Now our police are looking for the suspect because we have some clues,” said Mr. Saran who declined to name the suspect.
The mother and her three children, who all sustained head injuries, are hospitalized in in Battambang, police said.
