KUALA LUMPUR, May 20 — One of the two nuns attacked during a recent robbery at a Seremban church succumbed to her injuries today, district police confirmed.
In the attack last week, two elderly nuns — Julianna Lim Nyo Nya, 69, and Marie-Rose Teng, 79 — had their handbags snatched from them at 6am at the main entrance of the Church of Visitation.
Their attacker used a helmet to hit them, leaving Lim in a coma.
Lim’s bag only contained RM10 and three pocket bibles, while Teng’s contained “a little” cash and a mobile phone, according to Negri Sembilan police chief Datuk Osman Salleh.
Today, Osman confirmed with The Malay Mail Online that Lim passed away at 3.25pm this afternoon.
The case, initially investigated as a robbery under the Penal Code, has now been reclassified as murder under Section 302, he added.
Police had said the attack was not a hate crime but plain robbery.
In a statement today, the provincial head of the Infant Jesus Sisters, Sister Celina Wong confirmed that the 69-year-old passed away at the Tunku Jaafar Hospital Seremban this afternoon.
“No words can express what her family members and the Infant Jesus Sisters are feeling at this moment.
“We ask for your kind assistance to respect and accord space to the family members and the Infant Jesus Sisters to grieve and to come to terms with the passing of Sister Juliana.
“We thank all of you for your concern, prayers and support during this difficult time,” she said.
The footage of the man believed to have viciously attacked the two nuns outside the church may have been captured on surveillance recordings, despite earlier reports that the closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras on site had not been working.
According to Church of Visitation’s parish priest, Father John Gnanapiragasam, two of the churches 13 CCTV cameras captured images of a motorcyclist as he made a U-turn at about 6.05am and rode into one of the church’s gates, a minute after the sisters drove into the Church of Visitation compound on May 14.
“The assailant, who was wearing a helmet and holding a lighted torch, ran after the two sisters who were dressed in everyday clothes,” he was quoted as saying by The Star on its website today.
“He was then seen running towards his motorcycle and taking off two minutes later.”
Osman, the chief of police in the state, told The Malay Mail Online that the CCTV recordings have been sent to the forensic department and a report is expected by Thursday.
