The naked body of a woman in her 20s was discovered in an empty lot in Phnom Penh’s Pur Senchey district on Sunday, according to police, who believe the victim was raped and murdered.
District police chief Yoeun Sarann said the unidentified woman’s body was found wrapped in a hammock in the overgrown lot in Kakab commune, and that police had concluded that she was strangled to death.
Mr. Sarann said the woman’s highlighted hair initially led investigators to suspect that she had worked in a karaoke parlor, but that subsequent interviews at nearby establishments turned up no reports of missing employees.
“We suspect that this case involved revenge, and the victim was a construction worker, not a karaoke lady,” he said, explaining that there were many construction sites in the area.
“Now, local police are distributing her picture to workers at all the [nearby] construction sites in order to identify her,” he said.
Commune police chief Sann Pet said that because the woman had been naked when she was found, police believed she was also raped, and would commission an autopsy to verify the theory.
