Psychiatrist weighs in on Teo’s mental state in S’pore killings

SINGAPORE: Three minutes into strangling his pregnant wife with a towel to “shut her up” for belittling him, Teo Ghim Heng decided to kill her.

As Choong Pei Shan struggled for her life, he told her: “Shan, you got to let go already, I owe a lot of money. If you struggle, you will suffer.”

After making sure she was dead, Teo asked his four-year-old daughter to sit on his lap. “Don’t be scared, Papa is here,” he assured her.

The girl cried as he allegedly tightened the towel around her neck. “Go find your mummy first. Papa will come soon,” he told her.

Teo’s chilling account of how he allegedly killed his wife and child, told to Dr Derrick Yeo of the Institute of Mental Health, emerged in court when the psychiatrist took the stand on Thursday, the third day of Teo’s murder trial.

The 43-year-old faces two counts of murder for strangling Madam Choong, 39, and the couple’s daughter, Zi Ning, at their Woodlands flat on Jan 20, 2017.

Teo is said to have spent a week in the flat with the bodies and burned them before the deaths were discovered on Jan 28, 2017 – the first day of Chinese New Year – after Choong’s family called the police.

Dr Yeo, who saw Teo six times and interviewed his family members and co-workers, concluded that the former property agent was not suffering from any mental disorder when he allegedly committed the murders.

The psychiatrist said Teo’s beha­viour was logical, goal-directed and showed planning.

Teo wrote four suicide notes, including instructions for his wife’s mobile phone – which contained photos and videos of Zi Ning – to be handed over to the girl’s grandparents, as well as instructions for the division of the couple’s assets.

Teo, who was mired in debt, told Dr Yeo that he decided to end all their lives because he did not want them to be hounded by creditors.

Dr Yeo said: “He was able to make objective choices and consider alternatives to his behaviour. His action to kill his wife was not something that was out of his control.”.

The court heard that Teo, who was treated at Changi General Hospital for Panadol overdose, told a psychiatrist that he had “no regrets”, adding that his only regret was that he had to take the life of his innocent young daughter. — The Straits Times/Asia News Network