Search for missing Eric Chang enters day two

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Rescue personnel searching for Eric during the operation today.

KUCHING (March 14): The search for the missing four-year-old, Eric Chang Wei Jie at Muara Tebas Wharf, Kampung Muara Tebas here has entered the second day today.

According to a spokesperson at the operation centre for the search, a team comprising 12 personnel from the police, Fire and Rescue Department (Bomba) and Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency (MMEA) started their search operation at around 8am.

“Its was drizzling (at the search area) at 8am today and the team will conduct their search within two to three nautical miles radius from the estuary to the sea.

“The assets that the team is using are the police’s PSC II vessel, four aluminum boats belonging to Bomba and one boat (Kilat 35) belonging to MMEA.

“With the water level receding, we hope to find the victim’s body,” said the spokesperson when met at the operation centre.

MMEA personnel participating in the search for Eric.

Kuching district police chief ACP Ahsmon Bajah in a press statement yesterday said Chang is most likely to have been murdered and his body dumped into the Sarawak River at Muara Tebas here.

He also said police have reclassified the case from Section 31(1) of the Child Act 2001 to Section 302 of the Penal Code for murder.

“Two of the suspects, the caretaker and her husband, will be further remanded to assist in the investigation,” he added.

The caretaker, who was arrested on March 9, purportedly confessed to police on yesterday that she knew what had happened to Eric.

She and her husband were then brought by police to the Muara Tebas jetty where the child’s body is believed to have been dumped.

Eric’s mother had lodged a report on March 7 at the Bintawa police station at 7.42pm, claiming she discovered her child missing on the same day at 9am.

On March 11, the Kuching police said four suspects comprising Eric’s parents, the caretaker and her husband were arrested in connection with the boy’s disappearance and were being investigated under Section 31(1) of the Child Act for ill-treatment, neglect, abandonment or exposure of children.

The four were brought to the Magistrate’s Court on Saturday, where a remand order until March 16 was approved for police investigations.

It was also revealed by police that all four suspects tested positive for drugs and had a total of 17 criminal records to their names for drug-related offences, property crimes and commercial crimes.