72-year-old man, Filipina worker murdered; house set on fire

AMMAN — Authorities on Monday said they were investigating the murder of a 72-year-old man and his Filipina domestic helper at their home in a western Amman suburb the previous day.

The two victims were discovered by firefighters who were called to extinguish a fire at around 9:30pm which had broken out in the apartment on Medina Munwara Street late Sunday night, Public Security Department Spokesperson Lt. Col. Amer Sartawi said.

“When Civil Defence Department [CDD] rescue teams extinguished the fire, which was located in one room, they discovered two bodies in the house,” Sartawi told The Jordan Times.

The police official refused to reveal any further information regarding the incident and said that “investigations are ongoing into the case”.

Several marked and unmarked police vehicles and agents were seen by The Jordan Times guarding the crime scene on Monday morning.

The apartment, which was cordoned off with police crime scene tape, is located in a four-storey building on the main thoroughfare of Medina Munwara Street and next to a busy clinic.

A 14-year-old boy who lives in the neighbourhood told The Jordan Times that he saw smoke coming from the apartment and went to check it out.

“I stood there watching firefighters extinguish the blaze, and then we heard from police that there were two dead people inside the house,” the teenage boy said.

A 40-year-old man, also a resident of the neighbourhood, told The Jordan Times that he walked towards the house almost half- an-hour after the fire started.

“I stood near the house watching the CDD extinguish the fire and then we heard that there were two murdered people inside the apartment. Police then asked us to leave the area, and we did,” the man, who preferred not to be identified, told The Jordan Times.

Criminal Court Prosecutor Ashraf Abdullah was called to the scene and supervised the investigation and autopsy, a senior judicial source said.

“Abdullah ordered that blood, tissue samples and evidence collected from the crime scene be sent to the crime lab for further analysis,” the judicial source told The Jordan Times. 

A team of government pathologists at the National Institute of Forensic Medicine conducted an autopsy on the victims and concluded that they both died as a result of multiple injuries to their heads caused by a blunt object, a senior medical source said.

The woman was also stabbed once in the back, the medical source added.

The forensic experts also indicated that both victims died shortly before the fire started in the house, the senior medical source added.

“The two victims were dead before the fire started, and the cause of death is severe trauma to the head caused by a blunt object,” the medical source told The Jordan Times.

The autopsy also indicated that the female victim was not sexually assaulted or active at the time of the incident, the medical source added.