Woman detained after body ‘dismembered’ over unpaid $1K debt

A WOMAN has been held in connection with the murder of a 40-year-old widow. The victim’s daughter claims the motive was the suspect’s unpaid four million riel ($1,000) debt to her mother.

Describing the gory crime scene, a Military Police official who asked not to be named said Yaneang’s body had been cut up into pieces.

Her arms, legs and head had been hacked off. Her abdomen had been sliced open and her vertebrae chopped into pieces.

Her dismembered body was stuffed into a black plastic bag and was thrown on the bank of the Tonle Sap river along Sisowath Quay in Daun Penh district.

The 17-year-old daughter, Pich Sievmey, said her mother, Koem Yaneang, a hairdresser at Phsar Chas market, received a call from the suspect on June 2, requesting Yaneang visit the suspect’s house in the vicinity of Phsar Kandal.

Sievmey said her mother persuaded an apprentice hairdresser to accompany her until the evening when she returned home with one of the suspect’s daughters.

On June 3 at 10am, Yaneang rode a motorbike to take the daughter back to the suspect. It was the last time anyone saw Yaneang, said Sievmey.

After her mother’s disappearance, Sievmey filed a complaint at the Chey Chumneah commune police station in Daun Penh district.

Sievmey took the search for her mother to social media until authorities arrested the suspect.

Sievmey said Yaneang had worked as a hairdresser at Phsar Chas for seven or eight years and had known the suspect for more than two years.

During the course of their friendship, the suspect had borrowed more than four million riel.

“That woman has owed my mother the money for more than two years. These days it was just my mum and me living together, as my father passed away 10 years ago. Now my mother has died, too,” she said.

Neither Military Police spokesman Eng Hy nor Chey Chumneah commune police chief Thon Kaony could be reached for comment on Tuesday.

Authorities arrested the suspect on Monday. On Tuesday morning, Military Police forces took her to the crime scene for a re-enactment.