After learning that his girlfriend’s family would send her abroad rather than allow their relationship to continue, 32-year-old Sim Moth rushed to Oddong Market where she worked as a tailor and stabbed her to death before trying to kill himself the same way, police said yesterday. Naem Chanthou, 24, was stabbed multiple times in her stomach with a kitchen knife at about 7:45am yesterday morning at the tailor shop in Kampong Speu province’s Oddong district market where she worked, deputy district police chief Major Seng Leang told Khmer Times.
 

“He got very angry with the victim’s family for blocking his love, and angry with the victim for cutting off contact with him, so he went to kill her,” Maj. Leang said. “After killing her, he tried to commit suicide by stabbing himself many times with the knife in his stomach and seriously injured himself.” He explained that Mr. Moth, a lathe operator in the district, had grown angry after the year-long relationship with his girlfriend was ended by her parents.
 

While Ms. Chanthou died from her injuries shortly after arriving at hospital, Mr. Moth was transferred to Calmette Hospital in Phnom Penh, requiring major medical attention. A provincial penal police officer, who asked not to be named, told Khmer Times that Mr. Moth had arrested for “intentional murder” and would be sent to the Kampong Speu Provincial Court for charging possibly in about a month’s time, after he had recovered from his injuries.

 

-- © Copyright Khmer Times 29/08