Mont Kiara tragedy: Parents blame Internet predator

"We really believe that this guy played a major role in causing her death. If he had come to us in the right way, and proven to us that he could take good care of her, she would still be alive today " Jimmy Foo

POLICE last night arrested the Indonesian maid who allegedly tied a raffea string for 21-year-old Jacqueline Beatrice Foo who fell to her death while trying to clamber down nine storeys to elope with her 34-year-old boyfriend last week.

Brickfields police were acting on a report lodged by Jacqueline's parents that alleged that the maid had assisted in tying the string from the kitchen balcony of the plush Mont Kiara condominium on July 16.

Jacqueline was believed to have lost her footing and plunged to her death just as she had started to scale down the building to meet her boyfriend who was waiting in a car.

Sources said the maid, who had been with the family for 10 years, would be transferred to the Putrajaya immigration lock-up today after the parents decided to cancel her work permit.

A source said police had recorded her statement in their investigation to verify claims by the family that the boyfriend had "coerced" Jacqueline to climb down the building using the string.

Police are also investigating the family's claim that the boyfriend was a cyberspace "predator" as he had allegedly befriended 25 young girls via Friendster.

The parents have also claimed that the boyfriend had mounting debts with loan sharks and only picked on girls from wealthy families.

Indonesian-born Jacqueline, who held Australian permanent residence status, was believed to have met the "predator" through a cyberspace chatroom two years ago .

The family, who stumbled upon her email password, had found a series of emails allegedly sent by the man who had, among others, "provoked" Jacqueline to flee her parents' home.

In one email, dated the day she died, Jacqueline's boyfriend told her that she had to elope with him that night as she could be carrying their baby.

The email, which was among a series of correspondence brought to the police's attention, allegedly told her to concentrate on how "you're gonna climb down that rope and please make sure your maid gonna hold on tight to it (sic)".

What was puzzling was that she was confident enough to use such a flimsy string that could not have possibly supported any human weight. Jacqueline's mother, Meliani Magdalena Soediredjo, told Malay Mail that her daughter would be "happiest when she was chatting online”.

“I gave birth to her, nurtured her, and gave her the best life could offer but I never thought she would be taken away from us this way. I never thought someone I gave birth to would go before me and in such a gruesome manner,” Meliani said between sobs. “I never thought I would see my baby all mangled up that way.” Jacqueline’s parents described her as an easy-going, bubbly character who spent a lot of time swimming and shopping, besides making trinkets.

Then, they noticed changes in her character. They later learnt that Jacqueline had met in person the man she had befriended for two years over the Internet. “She started going out very often and would only return home late at night. There were even times when she would disappear for days with her boyfriend,” Meliani said.

The worried parents had lodged police reports twice, one on March 23 and the other on April 6. Her mother also noted that her daughter seemed almost withdrawn whenever she had to spend time at home, and at times, she would refuse to go out with them, preferring to catch up with her cyberspace friends.

The visibly distraught father, Jimmy Foo, said they had never expected such a seemingly innocent Internet friendship to lead to her death.

Foo, who began checking on his daughter's Internet friends, discovered that the man she was seeing was a widower with two children and used networking sites to chat up young women.

Using different email accounts, he would chat them up in chatrooms and online messenger services. “We really believe that this guy played a major role in causing her death. If he had come to us in the right way, and proven to us that he could take good care of her, she would still be alive today,” said Foo, who described the man’s act as cowardly.

“All we want is for justice to be done as our daughter died a senseless death,” he added.

-TMB