Man leads cops to girl's body in suitcase

PETALING JAYA - A man suspected of killing a 15-year-old girl and stuffing her body into a suitcase showed no remorse on Wednesday, adding to Malaysians' shock over the brutality of the case.

"It's too late for me to regret," the 23-year-old told the media as he was taken into court for a remand hearing. The suspect and the victim had been fans of Japanese "cosplay" and had been making helmets at his house before she disappeared.

Asked by reporters why he killed her, he replied nonchalantly: "I don't know."

The man, who has not been named, is being remanded by police until Oct 29 to assist in investigations into the murder of Ng Yuk Tim, whose body was found in a suitcase on Tuesday night, The Star reported yesterday.

He was handed over to police by a sharp-eyed community crime watch volunteer who noticed bite marks on his hand.

Yuk Tim left home at 11am on Monday and went to the suspect's home in Petaling Jaya to prepare costumes for a "cosplay" event, where participants dress up as Japanese comic characters. The two had known each other on Facebook for five years through their common interest in cosplay.

The suspect initially claimed he dropped the girl off at a light rail station on Monday afternoon, but confessed to the murder after being grilled by police, The Star reported. He admitted that he tried to rape the girl before striking her with a dumbbell, killing her on the spot.

The case has put the spotlight on the "cosplay" subculture, but psychologist Paul Jambunathan said that may be peripheral.

"He could have used it as a tool to meet people," he said. "Is the knife guilty of the stab, or is the person holding it guilty?"

Yuk Tim's mother, Madam Sim Yee Ling, 35, had posted an anguished message on her daughter's Facebook after the girl had been gone for more than 24 hours. "You can take anything from me but leave me, my family and my baby (alone)," she wrote.

After she made a police report, the suspect posted his own message on Facebook about Yuk Tim.

"Everyone please help find her. Her mother is looking for her. She came over to my house to help me make cosplay helmets. As I had to leave for work, I sent her to the LRT station," he wrote.

On Tuesday night, he led police to a body, believed to be the girl's, which was in a suitcase in Shah Alam, a 25-minute drive from Petaling Jaya.

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