Sim Kheng kneels in handcuffs after his arrest for killing and beheading a woman and her granddaughter in Kampong Cham province earlier this month. Photo supplied
Following more than two weeks of intense investigation, Kampong Cham provincial police have finally located the heads of a woman and her granddaughter who were found decapitated on April 3.
Deputy provincial police chief Heng Vuthy told The Post on Sunday that the heads of Pou Oun and her granddaughter were found after they were carried from a forest by a neighbour’s dog.
He said the dog dropped two plastic carrier bags containing the heads near a villager’s bathroom on Thursday afternoon.
The following morning, a Kampong Cham provincial joint task force cooperated with local authorities to search the area and found the site – located in the forest about 2km from the victims’ village – where their heads had been buried.
“By following the dog’s tracks, authorities found the location where the two heads had been buried and have been able to gather further evidence. The heads have been passed on to the victims’ families to conduct funeral rites, and DNA samples have been provided to specialists from the CPU [Child Protection Unit] for analysis and to aid with efforts to bring the offenders to justice,” Vuthy said.
Sixty-five-year-old Oun and her six-year-old granddaughter lived in Trapaing Boeung village in Prey Chhor district’s Thma Poun commune. Their headless bodies were found in a forest approximately 150m from Oun’s cashew plantation on April 3.
Two days after the brutal murder, police detained a father and son – identified as Sim Kheng, 55, and Sim Sokhet, 36 – who lived near the victims.
Kampong Cham provincial court charged the two suspects with premeditated murder after police found a bloody handwoven krama scarf between the suspects’ banana plantation and Oun’s farm.
Working in conjunction with CPU, a non-governmental organisation, police determined on the day of the discovery that the scarf found near the crime scene belonged to Kheng.
“On the afternoon of the same day, [Kheng], his wife and children acknowledged the blood-stained scarf was theirs,” Thma Poun commune police chief Lim Long told The Post on April 7.
Doeung Chantha, 24 – Oun’s daughter and the mother of the six-year-old victim – told The Post she was not aware of any motive the two neighbours could have had for murdering her mother and daughter.
She said she and her family had never had any altercation with the suspects.
“I don’t know if these two really murdered my mother and daughter or not. They have not said anything and they never had any argument with us. I trust the police to investigate and deliver justice for my mother and daughter,” Chantha said.
Deputy provincial police chief Vuthy said the truth would be discovered in the near future after CPU analysed DNA samples taken from the victims’ skulls.
