On 7 June 2016, 59-year-old Seow Kim Choo (萧金珠 Xiāo Jīnzhū) at Telok Kurau, Singapore, was murdered by her 23-year-old Indonesian maid Daryati (who goes by one name), who stabbed Seow 94 times with a knife, resulting in Seow's death due to multiple wounds to her head and neck. Daryati also attacked and stabbed Seow's husband Ong Thiam Soon (王添顺 Wáng Tiānshùn; also spelt Ong Kian Soon) twice before she was restrained by Ong, and subsequently, Daryati was arrested and indicted for charges of murder and attempted murder. The motive behind Daryati killing her employer was because she wanted to get back her passport to return to Indonesia, as she was feeling homesick and missed her lesbian lover, who was working as a maid in Hong Kong.
Daryati initially faced the death penalty since her original charge was one of intentional murder (which carries the mandatory punishment of death in Singapore) before the charge was reduced to one of murder with no intention to kill, with the prosecutors deciding to not seek the death penalty. At first, Daryati pleaded guilty to the lower charge before she subsequently withdrew her plea of guilt and put up a defence of diminished responsibility in an effort to further reduce her charge to manslaughter. The defence was later rejected, and she was thus sentenced to life imprisonment after the High Court convicted her of murder a second time. Daryati lost her appeal against her conviction a year later, and she remains in prison serving her sentence since then.
Murder of Seow Kim Choo On the night of 7 June 2016, at around 8 pm, in a private estate neighbourhood at Telok Kurau, a married elderly couple living in one of the three-story semi-detached houses was attacked by one of their two Indonesian maids, with the wife being stabbed to death and the husband seriously injured. According to neighbours, they were shocked to hear about the killing that took place inside their neighbourhood. Several of them told the newspapers that they witnessed the police and ambulance arriving outside the house, after the first police report was lodged at 8:48 pm. Among the witnesses interviewed, there were three Malaysians who told the reporters that when they passed by the house, they saw a man, who was bleeding in the neck, restraining the maid (who earlier on stabbed the man and killed the man's wife) and bringing her outside the house with her hands tied. The man sought help and asked the Malaysian trio to help guard the maid while awaiting the police's arrival. Upon hearing that the maid killed his mother, the man's 34-year-old younger son (who just arrived home) angrily punched the maid before the arriving police officers restrained him as they officially placed the maid, identified as 23-year-old Daryati (who goes by one name), under arrest for murder.
The deceased victim, who was discovered lying on the floor of the master bedroom's toilet, was Daryati's 59-year-old employer Seow Kim Choo, and the injured man was Seow's 57-year-old husband Ong Thiam Soon, a businessman who was the director of three engineering firms in Singapore. The couple had two sons, a daughter-in-law and two grandchildren, who all lived together with them at their family's Telok Kurau house. According to people known to Seow, Seow was a nice person and easygoing, kind-hearted employer.
Soon after her arrest, Daryati was escorted by police to Changi General Hospital (CGH), where she was hospitalized and received treatment for injuries she sustained on her head and hands during the crime. She was scheduled to be charged the next day for murdering Seow and attacking Ong.
Ong, who survived the stabbing, was later hospitalized at Singapore General Hospital. After accepting an interview by reporters, Ong recounted that he was outside the house when he heard his wife's screams from upstairs, and thus out of concern, he went up to the master bedroom's bathroom to call for his wife, and after failing to get a response, Ong used a screwdriver to force the door open. Upon the opening of the door, Ong claimed Daryati suddenly attacked him by stabbing his neck. He managed to disarm her but when he went to check on his wife (who was lying dead on the bathroom floor), Daryati picked up the knife and stabbed him on the neck a second time. Ong managed to overpower Daryati during the second fight and used cable wires to tie up Daryati's hands, and took her outside the house, with three passers-by guarding her while he went to check on his wife, who was pronounced dead by paramedics at 9:05 pm upon the arrival of the ambulance (called by Seow's daughter-in-law).
An autopsy report by Dr Teo Eng Swee (or Cuthbert Teo) later revealed that Seow died as a result of multiple stab wounds on her head and neck; a total of 94 knife wounds were found on her, with 78 of the wounds concentrated at Seow's neck, head and face while the remaining wounds were on Seow's left upper limb. At least three of the blows caused fractures to the victim's face. After the completion of forensic examinations, Seow's body was returned to her bereaved family and it was cremated after a funeral on 12 June 2016, where friends and relatives attended and mourned for Seow, who was remembered as a good-hearted family member who looked out for her relatives and acquaintances. Members of the public also offered condolences and flowers to the family of Seow in the aftermath of her murder.
Perpetrator
Daryati (born 14 August 1992 or 1994) was born and raised in Lampung, Sumatra, Indonesia. She had at least two siblings in her family, an older brother and a younger sister. Although her official date of birth was 14 August 1992, Daryati claimed during her murder trial that she was actually two years younger than her official age, meaning that her true date of birth would have been 14 August 1994.
When Daryati was 14 or 15 years old, she was raped and sexually assaulted by her older brother over ten times in a single year. She was then physically assaulted and threatened by her brother to keep silent over the incidents.
As she grew older, Daryati, who studied up to high school, first worked at a prawn factory at her village. Daryati, who was homosexual, had relationship with her fellow employee at the prawn factory. After this, she went to a maid training centre, where she was taught and trained to work as a domestic maid. She then met Indah, who similarly went through the training programme, and they both got romantically involved. While Indah moved to Hong Kong to work as a maid, Daryati was hired by a Singaporean family, the family of Seow Kim Choo, to work as their maid.
Daryati first came to Singapore in April 2016. Reportedly, Daryati was given proper care and treatment by the family while working for the Ongs, who also had another maid named Don Hayati working for their household. She earned S$580 a month, including S$80 as compensation for working on her days off. Daryati's duties were mostly cooking, cleaning, walking the family dogs and doing laundry for the family and she shared these chores with Don Hayati.
Daryati's murder plot Premeditation and motive Daryati felt extremely homesick and lonely, as she missed her family from Indonesia, and also missed her girlfriend who was in Hong Kong. She was not allowed to have a mobile phone and could not contact her family or girlfriend, and could not get her monthly salary until she worked at least eight months under the Ongs. Daryati was not close to the other maid Don Hayati despite befriending her, as she was hired by the wife of one of the couple's sons, and assigned to other work. Daryati was only allowed to go out whenever she helped the family to walk their pet dogs. Her passport was also taken from her and locked inside the family's safe.
Since May 2016, only a month into her employment at the Ongs, Daryati formulated a plan to retrieve her passport in order to return to Indonesia, by force if necessary, and she also intended to rob the family of their money (also kept in a safe locker), which she intended to use for starting a business in Indonesia. Daryati told Don Hayati about her plan and roped her in to help themselves to retrieve their passports and steal the money. Daryati was also secretly prepared to resort to killing her employers if necessary, as written in her diary entry dated 12 May 2016 (though Daryati claimed it meant she would risk death to execute her plan):
I must carry out this plan quickly. I have to be brave even though life is at stake. I am ready to face all risks, whatever the risk, I must be ready to accept it. I hope that this plan succeed and run smoothly. My employer's family is my target. DEATH!!! (translated from Bahasa Indonesia to English)
In another diary entry dated 2 June 2016, Daryati drew a map to illustrate the layout of the house, to facilitate her plan to take the money and passport before escaping.
Execution of murder plot On 7 June 2016, in the second month of her employment at the Ongs' household, Daryati decided to carry out her plan. She selected this date due to it being the day when Seow's brother would arrive at the house to visit his sister, and would bring a huge sum of money to give to Seow as he usually did during his regular visits. Without discussing it with Don Hayati, Daryati armed herself with a hammer and three knives (one of them sharpened) - a kukri, a long knife and a small knife, and hid them at various locations of the house. The knives were intended for use to attack her employer Seow Kim Choo and the hammer was intended to assault Seow's daughter-in-law if she appeared during the attack. After Seow's brother and children left the house at around 8:00 pm, Daryati decided it was the right time to strike. She first asked Don Hayati to distract Ong and bring him downstairs, and also to act as lookout for her while she went upstairs to threaten Seow.
After retrieving her knives from their respective hiding places, Daryati brought Seow into the room, under the pretext of passing her the clothes she ironed. Underneath the clothes, Daryati brandished the long knife she hid and used it to threaten Seow, demanding her to return her passport. When Seow began to shout and struggle, Daryati dragged her into the bathroom and locked the door, and she proceeded to stab and slash Seow multiple times, including on the neck. A total of 94 wounds were inflicted upon 59-year-old Seow Kim Choo, who died from the relentless stabbing. Subsequently, Daryati also attacked Ong upon seeing him appearing at the bathroom before she was finally restrained and later arrested.
Trial proceedings Charge of intentional murder Indictment and pre-trial remand After her arrest, Daryati was charged with first-degree murder. As the charge of murder Daryati faced was one of murder with intention to kill under Section 300(a) of the Penal Code (also the most serious form of murder), if she was found guilty, the punishment for this offence was the mandatory death penalty. After the completion of police investigations, Daryati was remanded at Changi Women's Prison (Singapore's prison for female criminals) for a two-week period of pre-trial psychiatric evaluation, to assess her mental state at the time of the offences. Daryati additionally faced a second charge of attempted murder for the knife attack on Ong Thiam Soon, but the charge was later stood down during her trial proceedings for murder. Daryati's accomplice, Don Hayati, who was not aware of and uninvolved in the murder despite her participation, was not arrested or charged. Daryati became at least the sixth maid to be charged with murder in Singapore in the last three years, where Singapore witnessed certain high-profile cases of maids killing their employer or the employer's family member, including Dewi Sukowati who was jailed 18 years for the killing of Nancy Gan Wan Geok (ex-wife of Hilton Cheong-Leen).