The year was 2007. The new school term just started. Miss S, a teacher at the Telisai Primary School was just finishing tidying up her desk before heading out for lunch break. Miss S lives in Kg Telamba, her home is just a few minutes drive from the school where she spent her lunch break every work day. Driving home, she noticed that traffic was slower than usual. She remembered thinking that it was a bit unusual, but she didn’t put much thought to it. As she was getting closer to her home, the traffic became slower and slower. Right then, a number of scenarios came to her mind – a road accident, a house fire, a police road block, among others.

A few yards from reaching her home, she could see a number of police cars in front of her house and there was quite a crowd. It was then clear to her that cars were slowing down because the drivers were rubbernecking. Panic set in, but was quickly replaced with a sense of relief when she saw her in-laws who are living next-door and all her kids were alright. She quickly parked her car and walked hurriedly to them. Whats going on?? she asked. The next-door couple was murdered! her mother in law informed. She pointed at the bungalow right behind Miss S house. The area was taped off. Everyone at the scene was distraught, crying, hugging each other. Everyone knows everyone in the Kampong including the murdered couple, they are all relatives or friends to each other. Who could have done such a heinous thing. Unbeknownst to them, the murderer(s) could be there among them at the scene that day.

Miss S entered her house, overwhelmed with curiousity, she peered through their back window, an action that she later regretted doing. She quickly went out of the house and ordered her kids to stay outside and not to enter the house. She could never forget what she saw and until today, 19 years on, she could not get the image out of her head. From the back window, she could see the woman’s lifeless body on the sand just feet away from the couple’s house, lying in a pool of blood that seemed to be coming from the gaping wound on the neck. It was apparent that her throat was slashed.

In the bungalow, the police found the husband’s body, also lying in a pool of blood. His throat was also slashed. According to the villagers, although the couple owned the bungalow, they didn’t stay there on a daily basis. They actually lived with the husband’s parents at Kg Penanjong. It so happened that during the fateful day when the crime happened, the couple was visiting the bungalow and sleeping over, just the two of them without the kids. It is horrifying to imagine the kids suffering the same fate had they joined their parents there.

Police was seen taking statements from J, a mentally disabled teenager from the Kampong. It was believed that J was the one who raised the alert about the crime. He even directed the police to the location of a bloody knife, believed to be used in the murder, buried behind a house just feet away from the woman’s body. Upon further questioning, J then claimed that he actually witnessed the attack. At this point, it was thought that the police had their work cut out for them. They had the murder weapon and a witness. It looked like a slam dunk case. Or so they thought.

Miss S and a number other villagers including J were later taken in a police van to the station to continue to provide information to help the investigation. In the van, the ladies especially, were all crying, asking why why why the couple were murdered in such a gruesome manner. They were all overwhelmed with shock and grief. At that point, no one in the van knew that J had admitted to the police that he had witnessed the murder. Now, looking back at the moment in the van, it began to come back to her that while everyone was crying and wailing, J was sitting quietly with his head down.

In the police station, Miss S tried to provide as much information as she could. Despite their house being the closest and just feet away from the crime scene, Miss S and her husband didn’t hear anything at all the night before. Neither did the other neighbours. After all their statements were taken, the police took everyone back home, in the same van, except J. J was not in the van, he didn’t go home that night. Words started to go around about J being held at the police station. The villagers started to speculate and put two and two together.

Days later, information began to spread that at the police station, J had actually confessed to the murder and was being detained. People were immediately expecting to see more arrests in the days following J’s confession because it was rather obvious that there was no way J acted alone. But, no further arrests were made.

J is a familiar face in the Kampong. Everyday he would roam the Kampong, on foot, to wherever his feet took him. But he was considered harmless. It had become normal and not a strange thing for the villagers to see J in their backyards or at the foot of their stairs. There was never any moment that the villagers feared for their safety when J was around them. However, in the months leading up to the murder, J had started to hang out with a group of rowdy juveniles.

Those rowdy juveniles were youngsters from the Kampong as well who have “trouble” written all over their faces. They have been creating nuisance in the Kampong, making lots of noises even during late night hours. Boisterous, they looked intoxicated or high on something and had no regard for the peace of mind of the villagers. Perhaps J followed them around because they befriended him, and perhaps he just wanted to have friends, a sense of belonging. Interestingly, one of them lives in the house behind which the murder weapon was buried. The villagers were confident that those teens got something to do with the murder and that J might have been there as well with them when it all happened. People thought that J would eventually out them, but he never did.

The murdered couple’s bungalow remained taped off which at first gave the villagers hope that the police would come back with some forensic team to collect evidence that would lead to the arrests of the murderers. But, days turned into weeks, weeks turned into months and months turned into years, there were never any leads or updates, the case seemed to be not just turning cold, but dead altogether, as dead as a doornail. The villagers were heartbroken to see the bungalow being slowly engulfed by thick vegetation. Adding insult to injury, after 2 years of “interrogation”, J was freed. No charges were ever brought against him, nor were there any other suspects pursued by the police. After being freed, J was seldom seen outdoor anymore, he just stayed indoor and kept to himself. Even the rowdy teens, suddenly their pack dispersed. Well, well, well…