Three men on motorbikes were riding past a semi-detached house in Telok Kurau last night when they heard shouts for help.
They parked their motorbikes in front of the house and saw a man struggling with a woman in the front porch.
The gate was open and the man told them to grab hold of the woman. Two of them went to help him while the third called the police.
One of them, a mechanic, told The New Paper in Mandarin: “I held on to the woman, who kept struggling and was bleeding from her hands.
“I held her hands and got blood all over myself. The man was also covered in blood”
His friend, who works in construction, added: “Of course, we were scared. Whoever saw what was happening would have been scared.”
He then ran into the house to get a cloth to wipe the man’s wound, which was around the throat area.
The three men, who are Malaysians in their 20s, had stumbled on the scene of a murder while heading to dinner after work.
The house owner later told them the woman is his maid who had just killed his wife.
When the police showed up about five minutes later, they went to a friend’s place nearby to wash off the blood on their hands and clothes before going for dinner.
The men, who declined to be identified, returned to the scene around midnight to see what was happening.
One of them said: “I would not call ourselves brave for helping.
“We just saw that the uncle needed help and he looked really scared.”
TNP understands that the house owner, 57, was on the first level of his three-storey house when he heard a commotion on the second storey.
He went up to check and heard noises in the bathroom.
When he opened the door, he was shocked to see his maid step out with a bloodied knife.
He immediately tried to disarm her and was injured during the struggle while his daughter-in-law called the police for help.
The police said they were alerted to the incident at 50C, Lorong H, off Telok Kurau Road, at 8.48pm.
A spokesman said the injured man was later taken in an ambulance to Changi General Hospital (CGH).
His condition could not be confirmed.
His wife, 59, was found lying motionless in the bathroom and pronounced dead by paramedics at 9.03pm.
He added that a 23-year-old woman was arrested in relation to the case, which has been classified as murder.
Investigations are ongoing.
TNP understands that the maid, believed to be an Indonesian, had attacked the woman in the bathroom.
Her motive for the attack was not known by press time.
CROWD
A nearby resident told TNP that he saw a crowd of people milling outside one of his neighbours’ home.
From the outside, he could see the house owner with blood on his chest.
“The maid was sitting on a bench with her hands bandaged. There were blood stains on her legs,” said the neighbour who declined to be identified.
“I think she had also sustained head wounds because I saw a policewoman cleaning her head and there was blood on the cloth.”
The owner was then wheeled on a stretcher to an ambulance.
“Before he got into the ambulance, he told the daughter-in-law to arrange for both their maids to be sent home,” he said.
The injured maid was taken away in another ambulance, he added.
“One of his sons later came out of the house and sat at the front porch. Then rain fell and most of the crowd dispersed.”
A neighbour in her 50s, who wanted to be known only as Ms Wang, said that she usually saw the owner gardening.
She heard from her sister that he spent a lot of time tending to the vegetables in the grass patch outside his house and did business in China.
The Singapore Civil Defence Force said it sent two ambulances to the scene after receiving a call at 8.47pm.
A spokesman said a woman in her 20s was taken to CGH with an injury on the left side of the head and lacerations on both hands.
A man who was in the crowd identified himself as an employee of the house owner’s son, who owns a fish farm in Johor Baru, and that his father owns a construction company.
He said he had gone to the house after his employer called him to say that something had happened to his mother.
A group of six to seven men had also gathered at a bus stop about 50m from the house.
One of them was sobbing while gesticulating as two friends tried to console him.
Past cases of maid violence
May 31, 2016
Indonesian maid Dewi Sukowati, 20, was sentenced to 18 years’ jail for culpable homicide not amounting to murder.
She had snapped after her employer, socialite Nancy Gan Wan Geok, 69, hit her head with a tray.
Dewi grabbed Madam Gan’s hair and swung her head against a wall before drowning her in the bungalow’s swimming pool.
Dec 10, 2015
Indonesian maid Yati, 24, was sentenced to 10 years’ jail for culpable homicide not amounting to murder.
She smothered Madam Aandi Abdul Rahman Rasheeda Begam, 76, with a pillow while the victim was asleep on Jan 14, 2014.
Yati said she felt stressed as she would get scolded for her mistakes and was given leftover food.
July 27, 2015
Myanmar maid Than Than Win, 25, was sentenced to 13 years’ jail for culpable homicide.
She killed her employer’s mother-in-law, Madam Yong Wan Lan, 87, by stabbing her with a pair of scissors on March 4, 2014.
Win said she had become increasingly angry over a scolding from Madam Yong.
The elderly woman suffered 21 stab wounds, two of which were fatal injuries to her heart and lungs.
May 25, 2015
Indonesian maid Tuti Aeliyah, 30, was sentenced to 12 years’ jail for culpable homicide.
She tried to smother her employer’s daughter, Shameera Basha Noor Basha, 16, with a pillow while she was asleep before stabbing the teen with a kitchen knife and strangling her with her school pinafore.
Tuti said a ghost in the mirror had told her to kill Shameera.
tammei@sph.com.sg
This article was first published on June 8, 2016.
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