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Dead boy found in car missing since Friday: Mother
His mother said he was not the daring type to wander far from home alone.
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The vacant land in Muara Baru, Penjaringan, North Jakarta, where a the boys was found dead in a car. (Kompas.com/Ardito Ramadhan)
R, a 3.5-year-old boy who was found dead in a car, had been missing since Friday, his mother said.
Leha told kompas.com that her son had been missing since 4:30 p.m. on Friday, and his grandmother was the last person to see him alive.
“On Friday at 4:30 p.m., we started to look for him. At 4 p.m., he was fed by his grandma and after that he asked her to change his clothes. Then he was gone,” she said on Monday.
Leha and her husband were not home when it happened because they were working.
His grandmother had become anxious when he did not come home, she said.
“He usually went out for only 10 to 15 minutes because he normally bought snacks from a nearby stall. So, this was the first time that he went out so for so long,” she added.
Family and neighbors immediately formed a search party and the news about his disappearance was also disseminated on social media by the family. Some of his friends said he was seen watching a monkey mask show near his house.
The search centered around Senen, Central Jakarta, because R’s family thought he had followed the monkey mask group.
“We did not report it to the police because he had not been missing for 24 hours,” Leha said.
She was eventually informed by a neighbor that R had been found in a parked car that was 200 meters from her house in Muara Baru, North Jakarta.
Leha, who was in a state of shock, said she never thought that R would wander so far from home.
“He was not that daring to wander off alone. The furthest he went to was the mosque," she added.
R was found dead in a locked car on vacant land -- which is used as a parking lot by tenants of the Pluit Sea View Apartment complex in Muara Baru, Penjaringan district, North Jakarta -- on Saturday at around 5:20 p.m. The police said he had died due to a lack of oxygen.
Parking attendant Rian, who is also the land owner’s grandson, said children often played in the parking lot, adding that it was used by some tenants to park their cars.
Car owner Afandi Arfandi found R’s body lying on the backseat of his car.
According to Afandi, the last person to use his car was his brother-in-law, Ruslan, on Friday. The police have yet to question Ruslan.
They suspect that Ruslan forgot to lock the car, which gave R the chance to sneak in and accidentally lock the doors. (evi)
