A 22-year-old woman was found murdered in Phnom Penh’s Pur Senchey district on Thursday morning, while police say her killer was found dead of a suspected suicide later in the day.
Choam Chao commune police chief Theng Kosal said investigators believed that the suspect, 29-year-old garment worker Yin Dina, attempted to rape Sun Kunthi, but became enraged when she fought him off, and so strangled her to death.
“The victim’s body was found at 9:20 a.m. inside her grocery store house. Her body was found naked from the waist down,” Mr. Kosal said.
Witnesses told police they had seen Yin Dina enter and then leave the victim’s house at about 8:30 a.m. When officers arrived at the suspect’s home nearby, they discovered him hanging from the ceiling.
“We also found an empty box of poison nearby his body, so we think the suspect took poison before hanging himself,” Mr. Kosal said.
According to the police chief, neighbors said the suspect had long held unrequited feelings for the victim. When he saw that she was home alone, “he went there and attempted to rape her,” he said.
“I think the woman refused to have sex with him and she was fighting back, which angered the suspect and led him to kill her,” he added.
Non Mony Rath, chief of the municipal police’s technical and scientific bureau, examined the body and said there was evidence of attempted rape.
“According to the result of the body examination, which was just finished this afternoon, the victim was not raped because she fought back. She was killed by strangulation with a string,” he said.
“I also examined the suspect’s body and we found that he ingested rat pesticide to commit suicide first, but did not die, so he hanged himself.”
