BUKIT MERTAJAM, Dec 6 ― The wife of the landlord of Kampung Pisang in Cherok To'kun could never have imagined the horror that could one day take place in one of her houses when she rented it out to a Myanmar national some four months ago. 

Identifying herself as Rohaizad, 54, she told Malay Mail that the Myanmar national in his 40s and another man in his 30s, also from Myanmar, had rented two houses at the same time. 

The elder Myanmar national would turn out to be the prime suspect in the gruesome murder of Myanmar nationals in Penang and he carried out his monstrous deeds in his rented house, No. 575G. 

Police believe at least two people were brutally murdered and chopped up by the man, who is said to be an odd-job worker. 

"They looked so innocent," Rohaizad recalled. "We are shocked to find out about the murders."

Bangladeshi tenant Ashaful Rahim, 18, has been living in the quiet village some 50m from the main road for the last two years but is now having second thoughts. 

"Now I have some kind of fear in me, I might move out," he said.

Another tenant, Shajat Rossan, 29, said he had never seen the 40-year-old or the younger man mingling with the other tenants of more than 20 houses there, which are rented out to mostly foreign workers.

"They kept to themselves," Shajat said.

Penang police chief Datuk Abdul Rahim Hanafi yesterday inspected the houses where the two Myanmar nationals had lived. The two men were among eight arrested last week.

The house where the bodies were chopped up was cordoned off. 

The prime suspect, who is from Arakan district in Myanmar, had led the police to the house, where three parangs were recovered. 

A decapitated head in a plastic bag found near a coffeeshop at Lorong Impian Ria 5, Taman Impian Ria in Alma on Nov 24 and another recovered near the Machang Bubuk police station on Dec 1 are believed to be the victims the prime suspect had butchered.

According to sources, the man had admitted to killing at least three of his countrymen in retaliation for the deaths of six of his family members during communal clashes between Muslims and Buddhists a year ago. 

Abdul Rahim warned the Myanmar nationals here to respect the laws in Malaysia and not take the law into their own hands.

The killings were committed on both the island and mainland and the victims were found with their throats slit, and heads and limbs chopped off.

Most of the victims, aged between 20 and 40, were abducted from their homes, murdered elsewhere and their bodies dumped in isolated areas, including plantations and rivers.