The Vietnamese woman suspected of helping to kill the North Korean president's half-brother was a keen singer whose Facebook pages featured pouting portraits and pictures of parties.

Four days before Kim Jong-nam was killed at a Malaysian airport, the woman appears to have posted a picture of herself wearing a shirt emblazoned with the acronym ‘LOL’, similar to the one on the fleeing suspect caught on CCTV cameras.

The woman worked at an entertainment outlet, according to Malaysian police, who have arrested her over the murder of Kim Jong-nam.

On a rice farm in northern Vietnam, the family whose daughter's details match those from Malaysian police, said it rarely knew where she was since she left home a decade ago, aged 18.

The last post on a Facebook page in a different name, which family members confirmed to be one of her accounts, is dated Feb 11 from Kampong Besut, Malaysia.

"I want to sleep more but by your side," the post reads above a picture of her, eyes closed and wrapped up in bed.

Malaysian police have said the suspect and an Indonesian woman wiped a liquid, containing a yet unidentified toxic substance, on Kim Jong-nam's face at KLIA2 budget air terminal on Feb 13.

The estranged half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un died soon afterwards.

The woman was described by police as an "entertainment outlet employee", but they did not give details of where she had been employed or what her immigration status was.

Talent show

Among the links on another Facebook account, which the family also said featured pictures of her, was one to the page of the ‘Vietnam Idol’ talent show. This account was in yet another name. There were no posts after November.

A woman bearing a close resemblance to the suspect sang on the show as contestant number 67816 on June 3, 2016.

Facial recognition tools give a match to the pictures released by Malaysian police of the suspect in custody.

The contestant gave Nam Dinh as her home town - the same as the suspect's according to passport details from the Malaysian police - but her name did not match.

She left the show in the first round.

A member of the ‘Vietnam Idol’ casting team declined to comment on the appearance and its spokesperson did not immediately return a request for comment.

"Can I sing you a song tonight?" the woman wrote in a Facebook post on March 24 last year. "Reply the fastest and put your phone number in the comment. I will call and sing for you."

Family members mostly work the rice paddies around their home in Nam Dinh, in the Red River Delta south-east of Hanoi.

The suspect only visited occasionally, they said, and she was vague about where she had been. She is now 28.

Her father, who fought for the North in the Vietnam War, lost part of his leg in the fighting. Vietnamese authorities had been in touch since the arrest, he said.

"They only say they will support (her) as she is Vietnamese, but did not tell me if she is really a suspect," he told Reuters.

"Even though I am her father I cannot control things that happened when she is out there. I cannot know," said the suspect's father, 63, who works as a security guard in the local market.

Family members said they only found out she was abroad from the media. They had thought she was working in Hanoi.

So far, Vietnamese officials have only confirmed to media that investigations continue and they are in touch with Malaysia.

Korean link

A South Korean police official said thr woman visited the holiday destination of Jeju Island in November for four days and they were looking into what she may have been doing there, but declined to provide further details.

Of 65 friends on the one of the Facebook pages believed to be hers, 27 have Korean names. Fifty-six of the friends are men.

One status update on the first Facebook account was posted in the Korean language on March 23 last year, saying "I love you, I miss you", although it did not use words that would be expected for someone familiar with the language.

Most photographs in the accounts are of her attending parties, in hotel rooms or portraits. In many she blew kisses to the camera.

Cosmetics, clothing and fast food shops were among her likes on Facebook. Her place of education was given as Harvard, although the family did not believe that was true.

On Jan 3, she posted a picture of a boarding pass from Hanoi to Kuala Lumpur. Family members said she was last at home in Nam Dinh from Jan 25-29.

She also appears to feature in another online video. Posted last April, it is on the channel of a Vietnamese YouTuber who gets women to kiss him in the street.

The woman in that video matches the one in the latest police photo from Malaysia.

In the video, she is shown giggling before a kiss with the man on a park bench.

In the photo, she wears no make-up and stares uncertainly towards the camera.

- Reuters