Baekuni was a street vendor in East Jakarta who sold snacks, drinks and cigarettes from a cart. The homeless children who worked the streets around him called him "Babe," an affectionate word for Dad, and he was known for looking after them; some stayed at his rented room for a night or more. In January 2010, after the remains of a nine-year-old boy named Ardiansyah were found in East Jakarta, police arrested him. He then told investigators he had killed 14 boys since the 1990s.
The East Jakarta District Court convicted him in October 2010 of premeditated murder, with other charges, and sentenced him to life in prison. The Jakarta High Court raised the sentence to death that December, and the Supreme Court rejected his appeal in April 2011. The case drew wide attention in Indonesia, in part because it echoed an earlier one: in the 1990s a Jakarta man known as Robot Gedek had been sentenced to death for killing street boys, and Baekuni had known him.
Baekuni was born in Magelang, in Central Java. The detikX crime desk, in a 2022 retrospective, gave his date of birth as September 6, 1960. Ages given in news reports during his case varied a little: the Associated Press described him as 48 in March 2010, detikNews as 49 in April, JPNN as 50 in September, and The Jakarta Post as 49 in December.
Little is known about his childhood. By the 1990s he was living in Jakarta. According to detikX, he and Siswanto, the man known as Robot Gedek, met in 1993, when both worked as motorcycle taxi drivers at Lapangan Banteng in central Jakarta. Robot Gedek was a homeless man who collected and sold plastic bottles, the Associated Press reported.
By the late 2000s Baekuni was selling from a cart in the Pulogadung area of East Jakarta, close to the bus terminal where many street children worked as buskers. He rented a room nearby. The children called him Babe, and the Associated Press reported that he was known for caring for them, often taking them home and sheltering them for a time. Neighbors interviewed after his arrest described him as friendly, especially with children, according to The Jakarta Post.
Ardiansyah was nine. He sang for coins around the Pulogadung bus terminal, his parents told police, and he was often seen with Babe. By Baekuni's later account to police, reported by detikX, he had known the boy for about six months, and Ardiansyah sometimes stayed at his room.
On January 8 and 9, 2010, the remains of a child were found in East Jakarta. Police from the Cakung station concluded that they belonged to a boy aged between about six and twelve, and formed a team to investigate.
A father from Cakung reported that his nine-year-old son was missing. DNA testing by the police medical center matched the remains to Ardiansyah. His mother had known that her son was visiting Baekuni's house, the Associated Press reported, and she suspected him. On the parents' information, police went to the rented house in Pulogadung on January 9, 2010, and arrested him. He did not resist, detikX reported.
By his account to police, Baekuni killed the boy on Thursday, January 7, 2010.
In custody Baekuni confessed to killing 14 boys. The Associated Press, reporting in March 2010, said police gave their ages as six to twelve and the period as 1995 to January 8, 2010. Lieutenant Colonel Nico Afinta, the police investigator, told the agency that Baekuni had lured boys to his home and strangled them. Other reports placed the start of the killings earlier or later: detikNews, citing the same police officer in April 2010, said Baekuni claimed to have killed street children since 1997, while the prosecution case reported by JPNN and the later detikX account both said the killings began in 1993.
Senior Commissioner Idham Aziz, then director of criminal investigation for the Jakarta regional police, said ten bodies had been found in all and that Baekuni had admitted two more victims, one in Purwokerto and one in Magelang, detikX reported.
Four of the boys were named in news reports. Besides Ardiansyah, detikX named Adi, killed on July 9, 2007; Rio, killed on January 14, 2008; and Arif, killed on May 15, 2008, all according to Baekuni's account. detikX said some of the boys he described were buried in Kuningan, in West Java, and in Magelang, Purworejo and Purwokerto in Central Java. The prosecution's account at trial, as JPNN reported it, listed killings in East Jakarta, in Purworejo, in Kuningan in 1998, in Magelang in 2004 and 2005, and in East Jakarta again from 2007, the last of them Ardiansyah. Little more is known about who most of the boys were, and several have never been named.
In Magelang, police tried to put names to remains found there. On January 28, 2010, officers took a blood sample from a farming couple in Magelang regency whose son, then in his last year of primary school, had disappeared on January 6, 2002. The head of detectives for the Magelang police, Adjunct Senior Commissioner Aris Suwarno, told detikNews the sample would be compared with the skeletal remains, with a result expected in about two weeks. A friend who had been with the missing boy on the day he vanished told detikNews that the man who approached them that day had called himself by another name, and that he could no longer remember the man's face, only that his voice and manner of speaking resembled Babe's. The boy's father said he still believed his son was alive. The outcome of the test was not reported.
The National Commission for Child Protection, an independent body, said the toll was likely higher. On January 19, 2010, its secretary general, Arist Merdeka Sirait, said photographs of street children found in a cigarette box at Baekuni's rented room probably showed boys he had marked out, and that at least 15 children had been killed, detikX reported. The commission's chairman told the Associated Press that reports of abuse and missing children pointed to more victims, of Baekuni and of others, in Jakarta, Makassar and Medan. "This is the tip of an iceberg," he said.
The psychologist Sarlito Wirawan Sarwono, who questioned Baekuni in custody, told the Associated Press that he had been caught because he broke a rule he had set himself: he usually looked for boys outside his own neighborhood, and Ardiansyah was a neighbor.
Within weeks of the arrest, the case was tied to an older one. Siswanto, known as Robot Gedek, had been sentenced to death in the 1990s for killing street boys in Jakarta. The Associated Press said he had killed 12 boys in the mid-1990s. He died of a heart attack on March 26, 2007, at the Batu prison on Nusakambangan island in Cilacap, before his execution, according to detikX.
His former lawyer, named Febri Firmansyah by detikNews, said in February 2010 that Baekuni had testified against Robot Gedek in 1997 under the name Sunarto and had been the only witness against him. He told the Associated Press that the witness had told the court he saw Robot Gedek with a young victim in central Jakarta in 1995. If the witness and Baekuni were the same man, the lawyer argued, the testimony could be new evidence to clear Robot Gedek's name. He also said the court had refused his request for a psychiatric examination of his client.
Police rejected the link. Senior Commissioner Boy Rafli Amar, the Jakarta police spokesman, said officers would ask Baekuni about the claim but that the two men had no connection and that Robot Gedek's conviction rested on the evidence, detikNews reported. Baekuni's lawyers said he had known Robot Gedek only as men who worked the same streets know each other, and denied that he had testified in the 1997 case. The question was never settled.
The police file on Baekuni was declared complete by the Jakarta prosecutor's office in April 2010. Nico Afinta, by then head of the violent crime unit of the Jakarta regional police, told detikNews on April 16 that the suspect and the file would be handed to the prosecutors on April 20.
He was tried at the East Jakarta District Court. The primary charge was premeditated murder under Article 340 of the Criminal Code, which carries a maximum penalty of death, with other charges, JPNN reported.
On September 28, 2010, the prosecutor, Trimo, asked the court for a death sentence. He told the judges the offenses were cruel and went beyond the limits of humanity, that the victims were children, that the families had suffered lasting trauma, and that the defendant was healthy in body and mind. He found nothing to weigh in mitigation. Baekuni sat with his head down while the demand was read. Afterward he asked for leniency and said he was sorry, according to JPNN, adding that he would accept it if the judges did not grant his request.
His lawyer, Rangga B Rikuser, said the defense would argue in its plea that Baekuni should have been charged with ordinary murder rather than premeditated murder. The presiding judge, Mahmudi Saifullah, adjourned the hearing for a week for the defense plea.
On October 6, 2010, the East Jakarta District Court found that Baekuni had planned a series of killings, in breach of Article 340, and sentenced him to life in prison, Liputan6 later reported. The Scotsman, reporting the verdict, said the court had found him guilty of killing four boys aged six to twelve between 2007 and his arrest, while prosecutors had alleged as many as 14 victims. The presiding judge said his acts had disturbed society, according to The Jakarta Post.
The prosecution appealed. On December 13, 2010, the Jakarta High Court raised the sentence to death. The Jakarta Post, reporting the decision ten days later, said the judges had called his acts very cruel and inhumane, and described the convictions as covering four street children, while noting that he had claimed 14. The prosecutor said he was satisfied with the ruling. Baekuni's lawyer said he had not known the prosecution had appealed.
Baekuni appealed to the Supreme Court. A panel chaired by Djoko Sarwoko, with Surya Jaya and Salman Luthan, rejected the cassation appeal on April 21, 2011. The decision was not made public until May 2, 2013, when the court's clerk posted it on the court's website. Liputan6, reporting it that day, said the court had upheld his guilt for killing 14 street boys and the death sentence, which in Indonesia is carried out by firing squad. The Supreme Court later also rejected his request for judicial review, detikX reported.
The case put a spotlight on the children who live and work on Jakarta's streets. Andreas Harsono, an Indonesia adviser to Human Rights Watch, told the Associated Press in 2010 that his interviews showed abuse of street children was widespread, and he said the problem was serious on crowded Java. Frans Hendra Winarta, a Jakarta trial lawyer and chairman of the Indonesian Advocates Association, said police gave priority to other work and lacked the money and staff to pursue crimes against poor children. "Whether you're rich or poor, you have to pay the police. Otherwise, they won't notice you," he said.
After the killings, the Jakarta administration announced that children would be barred from working on the streets by the end of the year, The Jakarta Post reported in December 2010. Street children with Jakarta identity cards could return to school or join rehabilitation programs.
The Indonesian Institute, a Jakarta research group, recalled the case in February 2011, when another child abuse case came to light in Cirebon; it said the public had been shocked in January 2010 by a man accused of killing 14 children, most of them about 10 to 12 years old.
The sentence was final once the Supreme Court rejected his appeal. In March 2019 detikNews listed him among prisoners whose death sentences had become final but who had not been executed. In September 2022 detikX reported that he remained at Cipinang prison in Jakarta, awaiting execution.
How many boys died. Baekuni confessed to 14. Police in January 2010 spoke of ten bodies and two more admitted victims; the National Commission for Child Protection put the number at 15 or more.
What the courts found. The Jakarta Post and The Scotsman described the convictions as covering four boys killed in Jakarta between 2007 and January 2010. Liputan6 and detikNews later described the Supreme Court as upholding his guilt for 14. Because the reported findings differ, killings outside Jakarta stand as killings he admitted.
When it began. Reports give 1993, 1995 and 1997 as the start of the killings.
Robot Gedek. Whether Baekuni was the witness "Sunarto" in Robot Gedek's trial was claimed by that man's former lawyer and denied by police and by Baekuni's lawyers.
The Magelang remains. Police sought DNA from the family of a boy who disappeared in Magelang in 2002; no result was ever made public.
September 6, 1960: Baekuni is born in Magelang, Central Java (detikX).
1993: meets Siswanto, known as Robot Gedek, at Lapangan Banteng, Jakarta, according to detikX.
1993, 1995 or 1997: the killings begin, according to different reports of his confession.
1997: Robot Gedek's trial; his lawyer later says Baekuni testified under another name, which police deny.
January 6, 2002: a boy disappears in Magelang; police later seek DNA from his parents.
March 26, 2007: Robot Gedek dies on Nusakambangan before his execution.
July 9, 2007; January 14, 2008; May 15, 2008: Adi, Rio and Arif are killed, by Baekuni's account.
January 7, 2010: Ardiansyah, 9, is killed, by Baekuni's account.
January 8 and 9, 2010: Ardiansyah's remains are found in East Jakarta.
January 9, 2010: Baekuni is arrested in Pulogadung; he confesses to killing 14 boys.
January 19, 2010: the National Commission for Child Protection says at least 15 children were killed.
January 28, 2010: Magelang police take a blood sample from a missing boy's father.
February 2010: Robot Gedek's former lawyer claims Baekuni testified in 1997; police deny any link.
April 16, 2010: the case file is declared complete; handover to prosecutors set for April 20.
September 28, 2010: the prosecutor asks for the death penalty.
October 6, 2010: the East Jakarta District Court sentences him to life.
December 13, 2010: the Jakarta High Court raises the sentence to death.
April 21, 2011: the Supreme Court rejects his cassation appeal.
May 2, 2013: the Supreme Court decision is made public.
March 2019: detikNews reports he has not been executed.
September 23, 2022: detikX reports him held at Cipinang prison, awaiting execution.