Britney’s family members reading about her death, one of them bring along her dool.
SIBU: Police have reclassified the death of the 9-year-old girl as murder after they found leads from a security guard.
Britney Clement from Rumah Belinsin Ubong in Sungai Naman was initially thought to have drowned.
The case was initially classified by the police as sudden death after a post-mortem yesterday morning showed the deceased had no physical injury.
Rumours among villagers had it that the girl was raped and killed.
Acting on the rumours, the police brought three persons from the longhouse back to the police station to assist in their investigation yesterday at 3pm.
The three were the deceased’s 20-year-old sister, a cousin who is in his 20s and a 50-year-old security guard.
The security guard was detained after the police found doubts in his statement.
According to villagers, the security guard from a nearby longhouse was good to the deceased and had often brought her out to play.
After Britney was found dead, the guard was said to become very quiet.
Britney’s 20-year-old sister told police Britney was with the cousin and the security guard when she last saw her.
Their 40-year-old labourer father Clement Ringkai said Britney had gone out of their longhouse at 10.30pm on the New Year’s Eve, sending the cousin home nearby.
“When we found her body, her pants were not properly worn,” he said, adding that her sister dressed her up on the New Year’s Eve.
“Britney could swim as she was a kampung girl. She couldn’t be drowned,” Clement told reporters at the hospital’s mortuary yesterday morning.
Family members and relatives grieved at the mortuary as the post-mortem on the body of Britney was being carried out.
They brought with them a doll belonging to Britney.
The father said most of the villagers were drunk that night in their New Year celebration.
“When I woke up the next morning (Jan 1), Britney was nowhere to be seen,” he said.
As the family could not find Britney that morning, her uncle lodged a missing person report at the Central Police Station here.
The uncle then received a call at around 11am, saying Britney’s body had been found at a waist-deep flooded rubber estate, about 100 metres from her house on Jan 1. She left behind her parents, two sisters and a brother.