Local residents have discovered severed limbs and other body parts believed to be from a young woman, along the Kalimalang River in East Jakarta and Bekasi.
Early Monday morning, monitoring officials at the Halim floodgate found a bag containing a headless torso and a severed thigh stuck in the grating.
Later in the day in Bekasi, a local resident spotted another bag containing another severed thigh and two shins further upstream.
The body parts were taken to the National Police’s Sukanto Hospital in Kramat Jati, East Jakarta, for identification.
As of Monday evening, forensics specialists at the hospital were still carrying out a series of tests on the body parts, officers said.
East Jakarta Police chief Sr. Comr. Hasanuddin said the lacerations on all the body parts were similar and indicated the remains all came from the same victim.
“According to our observations so far, we believe the body was that of a female aged between 12 and 20,” he said.
Hasanuddin added the tests indicated the victim had been murdered and mutilated two or three days earlier before being disposed of in the river.
He said the East Jakarta Police and the Bekasi Police would establish a joint team to investigate the case.
“The body parts were found in two different jurisdictions, so it behooves us to pursue this case together,” he said.
Bekasi Police chief detective Comr. Budi Sartono said he believed the murder and mutilation took place in Jakarta.
“I think the murderer chose to dispose of the mutilated corpse in Bekasi because it’s relatively quieter than Jakarta,” he said.
Hasanuddin said the police would require more time to positively identify the victim, after which they would question her family and friends, look into her background, and draw up a list of possible suspects.
He added that because the victim’s head and arms were still missing, all that the police could go on to identify the victim was a butterfly tattoo on one of her legs.
The section of the Kalimalang River that flows into Jakarta, rerouted from 1964 to 1965 as part of the Jatiluhur Water Supply Project for the city, runs about 20 kilometers from Bekasi to the capital.
