Hoping for the truth: unsolved murder mysteries in Malaysia

A poster with Nurin’s picture and details hangting on the fence at the entrance to her school, SK Desa Setapak, after she went missing Aug 20, 2007.

WHILE intriguing, unsolved crimes can be painful for the families and friends of the victims.

Unfortunately, despite the dedication and hard work of the police, some crimes simply have no satisfactory explanations or resolutions, giving loved ones no closure.

Here are some of the most heinous cold murder cases in Malaysia:

Audrey Melissa Bathinathan

ON May 17, 1999, 17-year-old student Audrey left for school as usual early in the morning with a friend.

As they neared her school, the Methodist Girls’ School in Kuala Lumpur, they parted ways and Audrey walked on alone through an underpass near Bukit Aman.

When she failed to return home that day, her mother found out that her only daughter did not even make it to school.

Her body was found the next day beside a Tenaga Nasional substation on nearby Jalan Kinabalu, still in her school uniform.

An autopsy showed that Audrey had been raped, and then strangled to death in the wee hours of May 18, before her body was dumped.

Two drug addicts in the area were promptly arrested by the police, but later released when there was insufficient evidence to tie them to the crime. No further arrests were made.

May Goh Lee Fang

IT was another day of business for Goh, 26, when she arrived to open her new boutique in a newly-opened mall in Petaling Jaya on Feb 17, 2005.

The boutique, which specialised in children’s clothing, was co-owned by Goh with two friends.

When one of her business partners arrived a few hours later, she found Goh’s body sprawled on the floor in a pool of blood at the back of the store. Goh, who suffered multiple stab wounds, was already dead and had been sexually assaulted.

No valuables were stolen from the boutique, except for the victim’s handphone.

The police later picked up a businessman to assist with investigations, but he was released after an alibi cleared his name. The case remains unsolved.

Noritta Samsuddin

Marketing executive Noritta, 22, was also a part-time model. She rented a room in a condominium in Damansara, Selangor.

In the early hours of Dec 5, 2003, her housemates returned home from a night out to find Noritta dead in her bed – her body was naked with her face covered with a pillow case, her limbs bound by wire and her mouth gagged with a towel.

According to the police, there were no signs of a break-in and no valuables were missing.

Noritta’s housemates told the police that a tall and dark man with a strong body odour had dashed past them out of their apartment when they got home, but they did not recognise him.

A post-mortem examination showed that Noritta’s cause of death was asphyxiation. Several DNA samples that belonged to Noritta and two male suspects were found at the crime scene, which revealed that she was either raped or had engaged in sexual intercourse before her death. It was speculated that she could have been a victim of an erotic choking play gone wrong.

Police named Noritta’s boyfriend, Hanif Basree Abdul Rahman, as the main suspect of the case. However, due to insufficient evidence, he was acquitted in 2004.

Nurin Jazlin Jazimin

ON Aug 20, 2007, eight-year-old Nurin popped out to the night market near her home in Wangsa Maju, Kuala Lumpur, to buy a hair clip. When she failed to return home, her siblings and parents frantically searched for her before making a police report.

Witnesses said that they had seen a girl dragged into a white van but despite the nationwide search, Nurin was nowhere to be found.

Almost a month later, on Sept 17, her nude and malnourished body was found in a sports bag on the stairway of a shoplot in Petaling Jaya. She had been sexually violated and her body was brutally bruised beyond recognition.

She was identified through DNA tests, and an autopsy showed that Nurin was killed just 24 hours before her body was found.

Police tried to identify the perpetrator from CCTV footage of the crime scene, which revealed a man carrying the sports bag containing the victim’s body. Other footage captured a woman and three men at the location where the body was discovered.

Although the quality of the CCTV clip was poor, police were able to publish photofits with technological help from experts, including the US Federal Bureau of Investigation. Unfortunately the perpetrator, or perpetrators, remain at large to this day.

Almost two decades later, the horrific kidnapping, rape and murder of Nurin is still unsolved while justice continues to elude her family.

Sources: The Star, others.