A 17-year-old boy linked to an attempted rape which took place over the weekend was found dead from apparent suicide on a Sau Mau Ping housing estate today, police said.
Acting police superintendent Yin Hiu-yu said in a press conference today that authorities found the boy’s body while investigating the attempted rape and suffocation of a 19-year-old woman. The police narrowed the suspect’s location down to a flat on Po Tat Estate but found it to be empty at around 5am today.
After searching the rest of the apartment building, police officers found the suspect, a 17-year-old secondary school student, hanged inside an unlocked communal boiler room at around 5:40am. He was certified dead on the scene.
Police said they are treating the death as a suicide and do not believe it to be suspicious.
In the corner of the boiler room was a backpack containing a plastic bag; both of which matched descriptions provided by the 19-year-old victim. Yin said police found a T-shirt and shorts which matched the victim’s description of her attacker’s outfit “exactly” in the deceased’s apartment. The flat was unoccupied, and preliminary investigations suggest that the boy’s family is currently abroad.
Police inspector Wan Chun-hong said in a press conference on Saturday that the victim was returning home to Shun Tin Estate in Sau Mau Ping at around 2am when a man grabbed her by the neck from behind and covered her head with a plastic bag.
The assailant reportedly dragged the woman to a dark corner but let her go after she yelled, fought back, and bit him on his right hand. Forensic pathologists called to Po Tat Estate this morning found a bite mark on the right hand of the deceased.
This is the third case of suicide among sexual assault suspects in Hong Kong in the last three months. In May, the 48-year-old man suspected of raping a 22-year-old student for hours in Kwun Tong was found dead inside his cell at Sau Mau Ping Police Station shortly after being arrested. He reportedly hanged himself with a computer cable.
Earlier this month, a man awaiting trial for allegedly raping a woman inside her own home hanged himself in prison with a bedsheet. He died in hospital two days later.
