Four construction workers murdered 44-year-old online journalist Nurbaety Rofiq in her home in Depok on July 2.
One of the suspects, 25-year-old Deni Setiawan, was a construction worker who worked at a site near Nurbaety’s house. He admitted that he had been watching Nurbaety for the two months he worked at the site.
One day, Nurbaety reprimanded Deni for parking his car right in front of her house, blocking the exit. But Deni said this wasn’t why he murdered the journalist.
“I didn’t want to carry out revenge,” Deni said, as quoted by Tempo today.
Deni said he only wanted to rob Nurbaety’s house because he had seen that it was often empty. He enlisted the help of three construction worker friends to break into the house during Ramadan.
On July 2, the robbers broke into the house after Nurbaety went back to sleep following her sahur meal. The robbers made a racket as they were stealing Nurbaety’s belongings, which woke her up. Seeing this, Deni and an accomplice, Hafit, stabbed Nurbaety multiple times until she died.
The robbers then made off with four mobile phones, one camera, a tape recorder and some cash.
Nurbaety’s body was already decomposing in the house when she was finally found by people who visited her house for Lebaran on July 18. The robbers were arrested on July 20.
Nahurus, Nurbaety’s brother, said the victim was investigating the murder of drowned University of Indonesia student Akseyna Ahad Dori. No suspects have been named in the murder of Akseyna, who was found dead on March 26. However, the police have not officially made any links between Nurbaety and Akseyna.
Deni and his three accomplices could face up to 15 years in prison for murder.
