An Indonesian man from North Sumatra, Harapan Munthe, allegedly killed his wife and mutilated her body before cooking it in a pot of boiling water and tasting it.
He is currently on trial with the public prosecutor seeking a life sentence against him.
What happened?
According to the Tribun News Medan, Harapan was with his wife Nurmaya Situmorang and their 3-year-old adopted child at their home in North Sumatra on 11 November 2022.
His wife was cooking in the kitchen at the time while he was with their child inside a room, and his wife the brought the food into the room for them to eat.
During the meal, Harapan got reminded of his wife swearing at him with harsh words, and he then allegedly told up and wrapped his arms around her neck.
He then grabbed a knife that measured about 30cm while holding his wife, stabbing her on the right side of her neck as she fell onto the ground.
She then tried to stand up but Harapan kicked her, and she then stopped moving before he used a blanket to cover her body.
Their 3-year-old child had witnessed the murder, and Harapan tried to calm the child down, moving the child to another room.
After that at about 6.30pm, he returned and dragged his wife’s body into the living room, before going into the toilet to wash off the blood on his hands before cleaning up the blood trail on the floor using a mop.
He then dragged her body into the kitchen and stabbed his already-deceased wife with a knife twice in the chest to make sure that she was dead.
At about 7pm Harapan then decapitated his wife, cutting off her head and putting the severed head into a sack, before taking a blanket and a sarong to cover her body.
He then went into the room where his child was and fell asleep.
He later woke up at about 11pm and went into the kitchen, cutting off his already-decapitated wife’s right wrist, forearm and upper arm; before putting her right wrist into a pot, and washing it before cooking it by boiling.
Sometime after midnight, he continued cutting his wife’s body parts, before adding some salt into the pot that had his wife’s body in it, tasting the boiling water by taking a sip.
Harapan then took a nap, before waking up at about 5am, when he went back into the kitchen and heated up the pot with his wife’s body inside.
He then wrapped up her remains and put them inside a sack, taking it into a field that was about 50 metres away from his house and burning it.
Then at about 7.30pm, he encountered his nephew Hari Jumadi Munthe, and he told him that he had killed his wife, much to the latter’s horror.
The nephew then hurried home and told his father, Marnangko Munthe, about what he had learned, and the father then went to Harapan’s house and saw his brother burning a sack that had the deceased’s legs sticking out.
He confronted Harapan about it and the latter just nonchalantly told his brother that he had just killed his wife, and Marnangko then reported the incident to the police, who later arrived at his home and arrested him.
His wife’s mutilated body was then discovered by the police at different locations: the kitchen, the area behind Harapan’s house and the sack that he had stuffed his wife’s body parts in.
The police chief of Humbahas, Achmad Muhaimin, said that they found pieces of hands that had been boiled in a pot, and that the victim’s head, hands and feet were separated from the body.
Images source: Tribun Medan