ON Aug 20, 2007, eight-year-old Nurin Jazlin Jazimin (pix) stepped out of her home at the Wangsa Maju flat in Section 1 in Kuala Lumpur to go to a night market, a stone’s throw from where she lived.
She had told her mother she wanted to buy a hair clip at the pasar malam but when she failed to return, her parents searched frantically for her.
A police report was lodged and a search commenced for the Year Two student, the second child of three siblings.
Days turned into weeks. Despite a nationwide alert for her whereabouts, she was nowhere to be found.
Almost a month after a massive search, she was found on Sept 17, and what happened was unimaginable.
Her nude and malnourished body was found stuffed in a sports bag. She had been sexually violated and her violently bruised body was unrecognisable by her parents.
The bag was left at the stairway of a shoplot in Taman Petaling Utama, off Jalan Klang Lama in Petaling Jaya and was found by an office worker.
Pathologists who conducted a post-mortem found the girl’s body had been abused in the most perverse manner.
It was also discovered that Nurin was killed just 24 hours prior to her body being found.
As the hunt for the perpetrator went full scale, at least five people were arrested in the course of investigations but were freed after being cleared of the murder.
Apart from a photofit of a suspect, police also released footage taken from a closed-circuit camera installed at a shop close to where her body was disposed.
The footage showed a motorcyclist parking his machine before getting off and carrying the sports bag towards the stairway.
Moments later, the man fled the scene on his motorcycle.
As the man wore a helmet and the footage was blurry, police were unable to develop a clear image of him or the registration number on his motorcycle.
Twelve years since the incident, the killer remains at large.
The victim’s father, Jazimin Abdul Jalil, 45, has not lost hope in seeking justice for his daughter’s murder.
Last year, he made renewed calls for the case to be re-investigated, urging the police to bring the savage killer to book.
