Five people were killed and another boy seriously injured following a violent rampage by an unidentified man in Pou Chrei commune’s Me Pai village of Mondulkiri province’s Pech Chreada district.
Provincial deputy police chief So Sovann said the five murders had occurred on February 1. The case was now being investigated by the police, but they had not yet drawn any strong conclusions.
“According to preliminary investigations, we suspect that spite may have been the motive, but we have yet to identify a suspect. When we examined the victims, we found that they had all been beaten with a blunt object,” he said.
Sen Monorom town deputy police chief Cheng Mab identified four of the dead as Moth Krak, 45, his wife Nich Srey, 41, their sons Krak Ny and Krak Ly, aged 5 and 15. The fifth was Nuon Sam Ath, the 15-year-old son of another family in the village.
The injured boy, Krak Si, who is the 12-year-old son of Krak and Srey, was knocked unconscious after being hit in the neck by the suspect. The police chief noted that the family lived in Sen Monorom town but had recently moved to the district.
He said that before the incident, another son of the couple who lived in Sen Monorom town called his father around noon, but it went unanswered. The boy then went to visit the family in the district, but discovered that the house was empty.
The family’s motorcycle was still parked in front of the house, so he decided to go and look for them. He and his dog were searching the local creeks when he discovered the bodies of his father and two brothers. At 1pm, he called the police to alert them to his grisly find.
Mab said that following the call, he led a team of police to the scene. The three bodies were found between 100m and 200m from the family home. On February 3, the police discovered the bodies of the mother and the 15-year-old son of another family about 1km from the house. The boy was visiting the family to buy cakes, and it is surmised that he was killed because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
“A forensic examination of the bodies revealed that the victims had been beaten to death with a blunt object. In addition, Krak had been shot in the head,” Mab added.
Sovann said the NGO Child Protection Unit was cooperating with the police to provide scientific and technical assistance in investigating the case.
