HONG KONG - THE British banker in Hong Kong, charged with murdering two women whose bodies were found in his blood-splattered apartment, was devastated after his former fiancée cheated on him.
Rurik Jutting, 29, met Miss Sarah Butt, 28, when they were both working as traders at Barclays' London headquarters in 2010 and the couple had planned to marry, The Telegraph reported, quoting sources.
But the relationship came under strain after Miss Butt was seconded to New York and allegedly cheated on him. Sources close to Miss Butt claim she kissed another man. The "affair" left Jutting feeling betrayed.
The couple tried to patch up their differences and got engaged. Mr Jutting even bought a ring, sources said. But the relationship had been irreparably damaged and soon ended. The couple had no contact since, and Jutting went on to have several girlfriends since.
In 2013, Jutting moved to Hong Kong and surrounded himself with beautiful Asian women, the Dailymail.com reported.
One of his girlfriends was Miss Ariane Guarin from the Philippines, known to friends as Yanie. They were together for a few months and were known to friends by the combined name "Ruyanie" before they broke up.
Days before the murder, Jutting had quit his job and apparently set up an out-of-office e-mail referring to himself as an "insane psychopath" and hinting that he had intended to kill himself. But instead police found two bodies in his flat of Indonesians Jesse Lorena, 32, and Sumarti Ningshi, 25 - one of whom had been dead at least five days.
Miss Lorena had told friends just hours before her death that she was attending a party. "I am going to have fun," were her last words to her friends.
She first came to Hong Kong to work as a domestic help from a small island near Java and had been in the city for eight years. Friends said she was sending money back to Indonesia, where a house she was building was nearing completion and was to soon go back for good.
She was a regular face at the pubs and shops in Wan Chai district, where Jutting had a studio apartment. She was last seen walking with a man identified as Jutting.
Meanwhile, the father of Miss Sumarti on Tuesday called for her "sadistic" killer to be put to death, a day after Jutting appeared in court. Investigators found the body of Miss Sumarti, who had a young son and was from a poor farming family, stuffed in a suitcase in his apartment.
"I want the murderer of my child to be sentenced to death. He killed her, sadistically, so he must be put to death," said Mr Ahmad Kaliman, 58, speaking to AFP in Cilacap, a port town on the south coast of Java. Hong Kong does not impose the death penalty. "I also plead for the governments of Indonesia and Hong Kong to return our child's body as soon as possible. I want her to be be buried in Indonesia," he added.
Miss Sumarti had initially moved to Hong Kong as a domestic worker in 2011. She had returned to the city on two occasions since then, for a stint in 2013 and this year, he said. He said that she had a five-year-old son who now lives with his grandparents in Cilacap.
Jutting appeared in court for the first time on Monday, showing no emotion as he listened to the charges. He was taken to jail to await his next hearing on Nov 10.
