Wife murdered for cutting stereo wires
David Barbeler, AAP September 15, 2010, 1:04 pm
A husband killed his mentally ill wife by feeding her more than 20 times the lethal amount of a prescription drug because she cut the wires on his stereo, a court has heard. Hung Kiat Tan, 58, pleaded guilty in the Brisbane Supreme Court on Wednesday to murdering Siew Kee Ang, 53, on March 13, 2009. He was sentenced to life imprisonment.
The court heard Tan had provided full-time care for his wife since 2004, after she was diagnosed with schizophrenia. Crown prosecutor Sarah Farnden said the Singapore-born couple's neighbour hadn't seen Ms Ang leave the house for two years prior to her murder. Ms Farnden said Tan decided to kill his wife on the morning of March 13 last year after he came home to find the music he'd left on was off, and the stereo wires cut.
"This morning could be the last straw," Tan wrote in his diary. Tan then fed his wife 84 tablets of her anti-psychotic medication, seven at a time, the court was told. After a brief attempt to resuscitate her, he walked to a nearby store to call an ambulance.
"Today I killed my wife, no joke!" was another entry in his diary. The court heard Ms Ang did not put up a struggle or need to be coerced to take the sleeping tablets. "I can only assume that she was thinking 'okay, you want me to die, okay, I will do that'," Tan told police when he confessed to the murder during a second interview with them.
He told officers he had also been motivated to kill his wife because no-one else would be able to care for her if he died, although the court was told he was perfectly healthy. "It is best that I kill her. She can wait for me. It is a win-win situation for everybody," Tan told police. "My two daughters are useless. They can't even look after themselves properly."
Tan's legal aid lawyer James Benjamin said he had been directed to make only one statement - that his client was very sorry for what had occurred. In sentencing Tan, Justice Glenn Martin said he had given his wife more than 20 times the lethal dose of her anti-psychotic medication. "There is only one sentence I can impose ... you are imprisoned for life," he said.
