The court made the order after it was revealed during a trial of the sole suspect in the case that he had been doing time in a Jazan prison at the time of one of the maids' murder. Jazan is more than 1,000 km away from Yanbu.
The suspect also denied the confessions he reportedly made before interrogators. The confessions were endorsed by a court shortly after his arrest.
The bodies of three maids surfaced in Yanbu more than three years ago at different places and times. Police investigations were at a dead end without any clues.
Police found the murders followed a pattern. The killer had raped and tortured Asian maids and then disfigured their bodies to make it difficult to identify them before abandoning them at distant locations.
After failing to solve the mystery, Yanbu police got a lead from an unexpected source. While interrogating a boy arrested for begging, police learned that he was sent to the streets by his father who abused and tortured him.
The boy also told the police that he was afraid of his father because he had seen him torturing and killing a maid at his house. Police arrested the father who confessed to killing the three women at different times.
After finding that the man was potentially not responsible for the murders, the judge ordered investigators to verify his alibi.
The court also demanded the investigator to ensure the register recording the names of inmates in the jail had not been tampered with.
