Death by 110 slashes

THE slashing and stabbing went on for so long, Tham Weng Kuen, 69, had more than 110 wounds on her head, neck and back. 

She bled to death in the living room of her flat, even as her bedridden husband laid powerless in the bedroom. 

On Monday, two brothers sat in the dock, accused of murdering Tham, a housewife, at the start of a 10-day trial. 

The prosecution claims that Ismil Kadar, 37, attacked Tham with a knife and cleaver. While his brother, Muhammad, 30, did not wield the weapons, he is said to have witnessed the stabbing. If convicted, they face the death penalty. 

The robbery-cum-murder on May 6 last year caused a stir in the neighbourhood where Tham was a familiar figure. 

It was her daughter, Loh Yim Leng, 40, an accounting clerk, and two policemen who found her bloodied body in the living room at about 7.30 that night. 

She had called police to break into the three-room flat in Block 185 after her telephone calls to her parents and repeated knocks on the door went unanswered. 

When she went to attend to her father, Loh Siew Kow, 69, in the bedroom, “he appeared frightened and nervous.” 

“My father only said my mother was chasing away cats and somebody rushed into the flat,” she told the court yesterday.  

She noticed his feeding tube had been pulled out of his nostril.  

A nurse who attends to Loh, a stroke patient, told the court yesterday she had spoken to Tham on the telephone between 8am and 9am to make arrangements to visit. 

Tan Bee Choo, 30, goes to the flat on alternate days to dress Loh’s wounds and change his feeding tube and urine catheter. 

But when she turned up later at the flat at 4pm, no one answered the door. 

Police believe Tham was killed between 8am and 2pm. They also found a black purse at the foot of the flats which both Tham and Muhammad appeared to have handled, according to DNA tests. 

Loh said her mother was careful with strangers. She usually locked the gate to the fifth-floor flat, kept the windows closed and looked through the peephole before opening the door. 

But the two brothers were no strangers. They lived in a unit one floor below the couple. 

Ismil was arrested on the day of the killing after he tried to sell a cellphone that had purportedly been stolen. 

The trial continues today before Justice Woo Bih Li. – The Straits Times / Asia News Network