Three days before KD’s body was found, he handed his wife the money for their daughter’s high school enrollment fee. Then he left home. Nobody in his family knew where he went, or why, until a village official arrived at his cousin’s door with news that a body had been discovered in Baturiti.
That sequence of events, pieced together by relatives in the days since KD’s death, offers the most intimate portrait yet of the man at the center of a mob killing that has drawn national attention and government intervention across Bali.
The Last Thing He Did Before He Disappeared
Made Parta, KD’s cousin, said KD vanished for three days after giving his wife money to cover enrollment fees for their eldest daughter, who had just started high school. “The daughter in high school attends a private school. The building fee was Rp 2,713,000 (approximately $175). After he handed over that money, he disappeared,” Parta said when contacted at the family’s home on Sunday, July 26, 2026.
According to Parta, the family never learned why KD left, and even his wife had no idea where he had gone. “The building fee had already been paid by his wife. But after handing over that money, he left and there was no word from him. His wife didn’t know either,” he said.
How the Family Learned What Happened
Three days after KD disappeared, Parta was approached by the local hamlet head and village chief, who informed him that a body had been found in the Baturiti area. He went to Baturiti Police Sector before continuing to the hospital to confirm the victim’s identity.
Parta said he initially assumed his cousin had died of natural causes. It wasn’t until photos and videos began circulating on social media that he learned the truth, that KD had died after being beaten by a mob. “The next day, after I got home, I saw it on social media. I was shocked seeing his condition like that,” he said.
According to Parta, KD’s wife has since refused any attempt at informal reconciliation or settlement after learning the full extent of what her husband had suffered.
A Life of Day Labor to Support His Family
Parta described KD as someone who worked as a day laborer to support his wife and two daughters throughout his life. During clove harvest season, he worked picking cloves; outside of harvest season, he took on farm labor to make ends meet.
“During clove season, he worked as a clove picker. When there’s no harvest, he did farm labor, hoeing fields,” Parta said.
KD’s eldest daughter, who recently started high school, has since received educational support through Indonesia’s People’s School (Sekolah Rakyat) program. His youngest daughter, still a small child, doesn’t yet fully understand that her father is gone. “The older one is still quite quiet and cries often. The younger one doesn’t really understand yet,” Parta said.
What the Family Hopes for Now
Beyond wanting the legal process to run its course, the family says they hope for assistance repairing the home now occupied only by KD’s widow and their two daughters. “If anyone is willing to help, we’d hope for support repairing the house, since it’s already quite deteriorated. The only ones left there now are his wife and daughters,” Parta said.
Why This Detail Changes How the Story Lands
Amid a case that has already generated debate over KD’s prior criminal record and the proportionality of the mob’s response, this new detail, that his final act before disappearing was paying for his daughter’s education, adds a dimension that resists easy categorization. It doesn’t erase the theft he’s accused of, and it doesn’t excuse the violence that killed him. But it does complicate any attempt to reduce KD to a single label, repeat offender or grieving father, when the honest picture, as families so often are, was clearly both at once.
For his wife and daughters now navigating both grief and a house in need of repair, the money he handed over that day may end up being remembered less for what it paid for, and more as the last ordinary thing he ever did.
