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Woman on Trial For Carving Up Husband’s Body
Ronna Nirmala | February 08, 2011

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A woman who admitted to hacking her husband to pieces and dumping his body parts in a river went on trial in East Jakarta on Monday, telling the court she would not contest murder charges filed against her.

Muryani, 44, is facing a maximum penalty of life imprisonment for killing her husband, Karyadi, a 53-year-old watchman. Police said in October that she had confessed to the crime after a 24-hour interrogation.

Prinuka Arrom, a prosecutor, said Muryani murdered Karyadi by striking him three times with an empty 3-kilogram gas canister as he was lying in front of their TV at the couple’s East Jakarta home.

Prinuka said Muryani then used a knife to chop his corpse into nine pieces, throwing these into the Kalisari River. The parts were found snagged in separate floodgates in East Jakarta.

Karyadi’s arm and leg were found amid garbage clogging the Cililitan floodgate, not far from the Kali Baru floodgate where his head, other arm and thigh were discovered.

Arriving for the hearing at the East Jakarta District Court on Monday, Muryani told reporters asking her questions: “Don’t talk too much!”

Escorted into the courtroom by Pondok Bambu Penitentiary officers, Muryani told a panel of judges led by Judge Yap Arfen: “I have been very well, judges!”

The defendant is charged with premeditated murder, which carries a penalty of 20 years to life in jail under the Criminal Code, and unplanned murder, which carries a maximum sentence of 15 years.

Asked to respond to the charges against her, the defendant said she had “no objections.”

Ade Yuliawan, one of three defense lawyers, said they would not contest the indictment.

“She had not planned to mutilate her husband,” Ade said.

“If it had been planned, she would not have chosen a knife to conduct the act of mutilation. She would have opted for a better tool,” the lawyer said. “She told us that she did [it] spontaneously. She was extremely mad at her husband.”

Prinuka, the prosecutor, said Muryani killed her husband in a jealousy-fueled attack because she suspected him of wanting to take on another wife. Muryani was Karyadi’s second wife.

The lawyer said Muryani went into a rage, hitting the victim in the head, nose and mouth “until his teeth fell out and blood splattered on the walls.”

Once she believed Karyadi was dead, she removed his clothes and dragged him to the bathroom, where Muryani cut off his head and other parts of his body before putting these in sacks, Prinuka told the court on Monday. She then dumped the body parts in the river.

At the end of the hearing, Muryani was asked by reporters whether or not she felt remorse. She replied: “Not at all. He was not a good husband.”

Muryani was arrested on Oct. 19 last year and was detained in Pondok Bambu after the East Jakarta Police found discrepancies in her testimony. She confessed after a grueling interrogation.

“When it came to Muryani, her account of the story was confused and her movements were suspicious,” Comr. Nicolas A. Lilipally, East Jakarta Police chief, told the Globe in October.

He said investigators had successfully identified the victim after distributing sketches of his face, which led Karyadi’s first wife and son to come forward and report him missing.

“We questioned them separately. The son later positively identified the remains as those of his late father,” Nicolas said.