Police yesterday arrested a suspect in the brutal murder of a Prey Veng couple who were found with their eyes gouged out on Sunday, identifying him as the nephew-in-law of the female victim.

Victims Mean Yorn, 43, and his wife, Kak Bunthan, 48, had been mutilated on Sunday while out picking snails in a rice paddy in Prey Pdav village.

“After three hours of interrogation, the suspect, identified as 28-year-old Chay Heng, admitted that he had indeed killed the married couple because he was furious with the female victim, who had insulted him by calling him lazy, an alcoholic and [a person who] depends on a woman for survival,” Kanh Chriech district acting police chief Ny Sarann said.

“According to the suspect, he had hidden himself in the rice paddy and sprang an attack on his aunt-in-law, strangling her before submerging her into water, and punching her in the mouth when she attempted to scream for help from her husband 50 metres away,” Sarann said. “Then, he waited for the husband to come . . . strangled him, and drowned him until he was dead.”

Saran said Heng denied having stabbed out the victims’ eyes, claiming “their eyes were picked out by crabs”.

“The villagers . . . saw not even one crab near the bodies,” said the suspect’s uncle, Yem Sarim, who called for his relative to receive life imprisonment.