The screenshot of a WhatsApp chat eerily detailing what appears to be the last moments of a ride-sharing driver’s life has gone viral in Indonesia recently, with police investigating the case as a possible murder.
The driver, identified as Soeharto, was reportedly taking an unspecified number of passengers from Bekasi to the Subang Regency of West Java on Monday evening. As seen in the chat, when he was in Subang, Soeharto shared his location with a friend named Alex, telling him, “If anything happens to me, this is my location,” followed with, “I’m being cornered bro.”
Concerned replies from Alex followed in the chat, but Soeharto did not respond to any of them.
“We kept on trying to call Soeharto. By 8pm there was still a dial tone but he didn’t pick up. At 8:30pm he did pick up but he sounded panicked and immediately hung up and we couldn’t call him again,” another colleague, Kamil, told Kompas yesterday.
On Tuesday morning, Soeharto’s body was found in a field in Sumedang Regency, some 50 miles away from his shared location. He was found with wounds around his head, face and neck.
“Per the autopsy results, the victim died after being bludgeoned with a blunt object,” Sumedang Police Chief Hartoyo told Kompas yesterday.
The police have yet to identify Soeharto’s killers.
