Forensics unit personnel prepare to examine the body at the scene.
KUCHING: A woman was arrested yesterday following the discovery of her neighbour’s body, which was dumped at a parking bay behind a row of shophouses in Taman BDC.
The 35-year-old from Stutong Baru was picked up at her house around 4pm after police managed to identify the vehicle used in the commission of the crime from a closed-circuit television (CCTV) recording obtained from a coffee shop.
The body of 48-year-old Patrick Jinggi – clad in a collared shirt and jeans – was found barefoot and lying face-up on the ground by members of the public around 3pm. Police personnel, including a forensics team, rushed to the scene upon being notified and found no sign of physical injuries on the deceased, who worked as a labourer.
The team, led by district CID chief DSP Lim Bak Phai, was then told that a CCTV installed at the rear of a coffee shop had recorded the incident and proceeded to view its footage.
DSP Lim views the CCTV footage showing the arrival of the pickup truck.
The seized twin-cab truck at district police headquarters in Simpang Tiga.
The woman being brought to the police station for questioning.
Sources disclosed that footage from the motion-activated CCTV showed a black Toyota Hilux circling the parking bay area at 1.14pm before driving off due to the unavailability of a parking spot.
The vehicle, however, re-appeared a minute later and the driver appeared to wait at the side of a building until a parked car vacated a spot at 1.19pm.
The footage then showed the twin-cab pickup heading to the empty spot and reverse-parking into it but due to the CCTV being motion-activated, did not show the body of the man being dumped.
Police, however, were certain that the Hilux was the vehicle used in the crime, as a pair of legs clad in jeans were seen in the pickup’s trunk during its initial arrival at the parking bay. Following the woman’s arrest, police learned that both she and the deceased were neighbours living only a house away from each other, and that they were married with families of their own.
The wife of the deceased, meanwhile, told police her husband suffered from asthma and other medical-related conditions.
District police chief ACP Roslan Bek Ahmad, who confirmed the incident, said initial questioning of the suspect revealed she got to know Patrick about a year ago.
“The woman said she fetched the man from the shophouse at Taman BDC and brought him back to her house around 10.30am.
“Around 1pm, she said he began complaining of feeling unwell and she sent him back to the shophouse to fetch his motorcycle, with him seated in the trunk of her pickup truck,” he said.
The woman claimed that upon arriving at the shophouse, she discovered Patrick was unconscious and that she then headed to the parking bay where she left him lying on the roadside. Roslan added police have classified the case as murder under Section 302 of the Penal Code for the time being, and have sent the body to Sarawak General Hospital for a post mortem.