A 55-year-old Singaporean school director was found brutally murdered Tuesday in Kompong Speu province, in a case in which neither a motive nor a suspect has yet been identified, police and the Singaporean Embassy in Phnom Penh said.
Wendy Lim’s body was discovered in her lodgings in part of a Christian NGO-run junior school in Chbar Mon City, of which she was the director, according to deputy district police chief Sim Sameth.
Mr. Sameth said the Singaporean woman’s body was discovered in a partly built school building at about 7:30 a.m. after her colleagues at the school were alarmed that she did not come to work at the school’s other building, about a kilometer away.
“Her staff did not see her come to school as normal, so they went to check at her house and found her dead,” he said.
Deputy provincial prosecutor Muth Dara said he had attended an autopsy at the Interior Ministry in Phnom Penh, where provincial authorities and embassy officials brought the body.
“This case is a murder. Now our forces are investigating to find the killer,” Mr. Dara said, adding that a police forensic examination found the cause of death to be a strong blow to the head, but a murder weapon was not identified and a motive was not yet clear.
“Her belongings are not lost and there’s no evidence of rape. But the victim’s face was bruised on both sides of the jaw and the back of her head had a deep cut about 20 centimeters long, which had bled a lot,” he said.
He said that after the police examination was complete, the body was handed over to an embassy official and the victim’s husband, who had flown in from Singapore after hearing of his wife’s death.
Mr. Dara said the name on the victim’s passport was Lem Lean Sem Wendy, but the Singaporean Embassy identified the victim as Wendy Lim, 55.
Singaporean Embassy Deputy Chief of Mission Edgar Pang said Wendy Lim worked for Glad Tidings International School in Kompong Speu.
“We’re aware of this case and I think at this time the Cambodian authorities and police are investigating,” Mr. Pang said.
“At this time, we are extending full consular services to the next of kin.”
Provincial Military Police Chief Men Siborn said authorities in Kompong Speu were investigating the case.
“First we suspected it was a robbery, but later, we found her belongings in a safe. At this point, we can only conclude the case is murder,” he said.
The case comes after the murder in January of Frenchwoman Ophelie Begnis in Kampot province and the shooting to death of Japanese national Kitakura Kosei in Phnom Penh in March.
Kompong Speu province was also the site of the suspected murders of Frenchman Laurent Vallier and his four children, whose remains were discovered in a car at the bottom of a pond at the Frenchman’s home in Chbar Mon in January 2012.
