PETALING JAYA, Jan 6 — One year into the death of showbiz promoter and musician Stephen Joseph, his wife Mary Ooi has taken the Petaling Jaya City Council (MBPJ) to task for its failure in maintaining closed circuit television cameras (CCTV) in the area where Joseph was killed in a moment of madness following an argument over parking space on January 5 last year, near Medan Selera Malam in SS2/63.
His killer is still at large and police have repeatedly said they have no leads on the case, and that the council’s faulty CCTV was a let down.
Ooi felt the faulty CCTVs had hampered the murder investigations, adding that she was still baffled over the explanation given by the council over the non-functioning cameras during early stages of the investigations.
“A month after the incident, I was called to the Petaling Jaya police station to provide a description of the perpetrator. The police said they will gather footage from cameras in the area. However, when they got back to me weeks later, I was shocked when I was shown a letter issued by MBPJ confirming the cameras were not functioning because they had not paid their contractors,” she said.
Ooi said her family was hoping police would be able to identify the suspect from the footage and that would be a breakthrough in their investigations.
“When I saw the letter, I could not believe my eyes.”
She said Joseph’s family, including those in Australia and Singapore, were angered when they found out about the council’s excuse on why the cameras were not working.
Ooi said although police had assured her that they were still investigating the case, she believed it was too late now.
“I believe the police did their part but they themselves have told us that there are no leads or any evidence to hunt down the culprit.
“If only the CCTVs were working in the first place, it would have pointed the police in the right direction but now it is apparent that the case has come to a dead end,” Ooi said.
She still could not forget how helpless she was when she and her daughter witnessed her husband assaulted and nobody came to their rescue.
“It’s been a year but it feels like it just happened yesterday. It’s fresh in our minds and we want justice for Stephen.”
“It is disturbing to think that the only form of security in a public area, which is the security cameras, were not working. What safety is there for the people and what does the council have to say about this?” she said when Malay Mail visited the family yesterday.
Joseph’s daughter Joanne, 15, said she misses spending time and planing the yearly family year-end trips with her father.
“Our Christmas this year was not complete without dad, I really miss everything about him,” Joanne said.
She said the family avoided going to SS2 since the incident as it only brought back bad memories.
The family held a one-year memorial for Joseph at Assumption Church last Sunday. More than 60 friends and family gathered at Mum’s Restaurant nearby after the memorial and spoke about the good memories they have of Stephen.
Petaling Jaya CID department chief, DSP Marzukhi Mokhtar said the case was never closed and investigation were still ongoing, but police were unable to get any leads on the suspect.
Marzhuki said the family had been kept updated on the investigations from time to time.
“A video of the incident recorded by a witness was sent to the forensic department to enhance the image of the suspect. However, we were unable to do much due to the poor quality of the recording. That was the best lead we had,” he said.
In the incident, Joseph a former Alleycats agent was punched three times by his assailant. He suffered blows to his chest and died eight hours later.
