A woman believed to be a Japanese national has been found dead in her apartment in Jakarta, and while the cause of death was unconfirmed, preliminary investigations indicate she may have been murdered, according to police and a Japanese Embassy official.
I Ketut Sudarma, a local police chief in South Jakarta, said Tuesday that the body, believed to be that of a 28-year-old employee in the research and development department of an Indonesian-Japanese joint venture, was found on her bed Monday in the Casa Grande Apartments in South Jakarta.
"She was found dead at 9:30 a.m. by three witnesses, including her driver and a security officer of the apartment (building)," Sudarma said. "The driver asked the apartment's security officer to open her apartment after he failed to contact her."
According to Sudarma, the police found some bruises on her neck. The cause of death will be determined in an autopsy, which will be conducted after the woman's parents arrive at the hospital where the body is being kept.
The Jakarta newspaper Warta Kota quoted local police officers as saying the woman is suspected to have been murdered by a man based on analysis of surveillance camera footage from the apartment building's lobby.
The newspaper quoted Jakarta police spokesman Mohammad Iqbal as saying that police have started a hunt for the perpetrator.
According to other police sources in the report, the security camera, which is set up only in the lobby, recorded footage of the woman coming downstairs to the lobby to complain about some problems with the door to her apartment.
She is seen talking to a man in the lobby before they enter an elevator together, but the man never reappeared in the lobby.