A 44-year-old mainland Chinese man has been named as the murderer following the discovery of a man’s body in a hotel room of The Parisian Macao on Thursday.
The suspect was arrested late Thursday night after fleeing back to the mainland, with Macau’s Judiciary Police (PJ) and Public Security Police Force revealing the case was instigated by an argument over money.
According to details released at a press conference on Friday afternoon, the 27-year-old victim and the suspect were known to each other and were staying in the same hotel room. The victim entered the room where the murder took place on Wednesday night and the suspect entered the room at 5am on Thursday morning, leaving two hours later with luggage.
A preliminary investigation revealed that the suspect had a dispute over money with the victim in the room, before killing him and stealing cash, a mobile phone and a gold ring. He then fled via QingMao Port.
The PJ received a report of the incident at around 5pm on Thursday, investigated, and quickly identified the suspect before alerting mainland police. At 11pm, mainland police arrested the suspect in Chaozhou City, Guangdong Province.
Upon arrest, the suspect admitted to assaulting the deceased, but refused to give details of the subsequent incident.
Police found that the deceased was a “money exchange gang member” and was carrying HK$170,000 in cash. The suspect is said to have used a water bottle to attack the victim, causing a 2cm laceration to the head, after which he proceeded to choke the victim with his hands.
The accused has been charged with homicide, aggravated homicide and robbery.