Nurin Sudah Dijumpai

PETALING JAYA: The main suspect in the case of the body in the gym bag may very well turn out to be a woman.

She is believed to be a Malay in her 20s, brown-skinned, straight hair, medium built and between 155cm and 160cm tall.

She was spotted with a "Diadora" gym bag seated on the staircase where the body of the child was found. The woman was said to be clad in a red T-shirt and jeans.

This information was related to police by witnesses, who saw the woman and bag a day before the gruesome find.

The witnesses did not suspect anything amiss. They walked past her about 1pm on Sunday to go to their offices on the upper floors of the three-storey building.
Several hours later, as they were leaving their offices, the woman was no longer there but the gym bag was at the foot of the staircase. They did not touch the bag, thinking that the woman would be coming back for it later.

It was only on the following day that the contents of the bag were revealed when an employee of a bookstore on the ground floor of the building opened the bag.

The image of the woman, minus the bag, was also caught on a closed-circuit television camera from a neighbouring building. Footage from the tape also showed the woman getting into a silver Perodua Kenari which was being driven by someone else.

Police yesterday said that the footage from the tape is blurred and that they are now trying to enhance the recordings.

Petaling Jaya police chief ACP Arjunaidi Mohamed said the woman could be the main link in the case which had shocked the nation due to age of the victim and the brutality involved.

The victim in the sports bag is a girl between the ages of eight and 10. She was dead for about six hours when her body was found. She had yet to be identified.

She had been sexually savaged by her assailant(s) although there was no trace of semen on the body.

Postmortem revealed that the girl had foreign objects shoved into her private parts which ruptured her intestines.

It is also believed that the girl could have been held captive for a long time as there were bruises on her hands and feet, suggesting that she was bound.

There were also bruises on the top of her head and on her lips, signs that she could have also been beaten.

Police were not discounting the possibility that the murder could also be linked to the "Kampung Baru molester" who had attacked two other children, aged five and six, several months ago.

Both of the girls had foreign objects shoved into their private parts, but in those two incidents, the victims were released by the assailant, said to be a man on a motorcycle. That suspect is still at large.

Police on Tuesday, released the photograph of the child in the gym bag, which was published by several newspapers yesterday. That was to help in identifying the victim. But so far, no one has come forward to claim the child's body which is at the Kuala Lumpur Hospital mortuary.

Arjunaidi was disappointed with the lack of information from the public.

"No one has come forward. We are appealing to the public for help," he said.

A task force headed by Selangor CID chief SAC II Mazlan Mansor is investigating this case.