SHAH ALAM, Feb 4 — The location where human skeletons, believed to be victims of murder, were discovered in a burned house in Kangkar Pulai, Johor Bahru, has been confirmed to be on private, isolated land far from main roads.
A site inspection found the area fenced off and inaccessible to the public, with unpaved roads littered with construction debris leading to the site.
Besides the burned house, several other structures, including abandoned homes and a temple, are in the area, which is surrounded by oil palm plantations and is largely uninhabited.
A local resident who wished to remain anonymous said the location is far from main routes, so the existence of the house was unknown to nearby residents.
“We understand the land previously belonged to a man and has since been sold to a new owner. Even though we’ve lived here for years, we never went to the oil palm plantation because we had no reason to,” the resident told Harian Metro.
“We were shocked to learn a murder had taken place there, as we didn’t expect anyone was living in that area,” they added.
The resident said neither they nor their friends knew the victims’ family.
“We believe the victims were not originally from Kangkar Pulai, as we never received any information about missing persons matching them,” they said.
Earlier, the media reported that police found the skeletons of six individuals, including four children, believed to have been murdered in the burned house in the oil palm plantation.
Johor Police chief Datuk Ab Rahaman Arsad said the skeletons were discovered in a burned condition on January 9.
The discovery was made by a 48-year-old local man searching for a family member who had lost contact with him for three months.
Preliminary investigations show the six victims included a 35-year-old woman and her children, aged two, five, nine, and 17, as well as a 29-year-old man believed to be the woman’s companion.
Acting on intelligence, police arrested four local suspects — three men and one woman aged between 19 and 35 — in Iskandar Puteri on January 21 to assist with the investigation.
