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Mevi Novitasari’s family will lay her body to rest this week in a remote Indonesian village after cops arrested British businessman Jamie Chapman, 34, and charged him with murder
The family of a maid today told how she was due to jet home just hours after she was allegedly killed by her British “lover” at a waterfall in Hong Kong.
Mevi Novitasari’s family will lay her body to rest this week as cops continue to probe businessman Jamie Chapman, 34, from Surrey, who has been held over her murder. The 25-year-old’s body was repatriated to her home in Indonesia this weekend after she was found at the bottom of the Waterfall Bay Park in Pok Fu Lam. Police are probing whether she was killed after married Chapman ended their romance.
Speaking to the Mirror from the remote Indonesian village of Bulaksari, mother Manisem, 60, blasted claims she leapt to her death. She said: “I am angry because my daughter is a victim, there’s no way she would have killed herself. There’s no way it was suicide. She was a good girl who had too much to live for.” Manisem also revealed Mevi was due back to fly back to her home in Central Java just 24 hours after her death. And they told how they had been unable to break the devastating news to Mevi’s five-year-old daughter, Kyra.
The family said Mevi first travelled to Hong Kong for work 17 months ago, sending three million rupiah (£150) home each month to support her poverty-stricken family. She was due to return home to renew her visa so that she could continue working in Hong Kong. But instead her family were told she had died before ever making the flight.
Her younger brother, Budi, 23, said: “The day she was killed we had a txt from the employment agency asking if she had come home early. But then we were told she had been killed. We were devastated, in complete shock.” Mevi’s father, Saring Ahmad, 55, said: “We want to follow the rule of law in Hong Kong. But if Jamie is guilty then I want him to go to prison.”
Chapman was raised by his parents Kevin and Lee in a £1m detached house in Surrey. He sought to make his fortune in Hong Kong, launching upmarket ice cream and coffee shops. He was remanded in prison on suspicion of murdering Mevi earlier this month.
Police were called after she was found dead at picturesque Waterfall Bay Park in Pok Fu Lam on the south coast of Hong Kong island. According to local reports she had suffered severe head injuries. It is claimed in local media that she had been embroiled in a clandestine affair with Chapman – who is married to a woman said to a Hong Kong local, aged 36.
It is alleged that the supposed lovers met at the park, with witnesses claiming to have seen them together before Mevi was found dead. The Briton was arrested along with his wife. The couple live in a high-rise flat not far from the scene of the maid’s death. Chapman will appear in court again in January.
