GRANDPARENTS often make the best babysitters. Being their own flesh and blood, grandchildren can almost always be assured of being showered with immeasurable love and care from their grandparents.
For one father, leaving his 10-year-old daughter under the watch of his mother, even when he knew she suffered from mental health issues, gave him peace of mind while he was busy earning a living.
But on the morning of Feb 2, 2012, he received a call any parent would dread.
It was his 57-year-old mother.
Choking up while she spoke, the woman told her son she did not want to continue living and wished to end her life.
She also told him that she had killed his daughter, Fong Mei Shuang.
Stunned by what he heard from his mother, the man rushed back home to the Koi Legian apartments in Taman Kinrara, Puchong.
When he reached his apartment on the eighth floor, he found his mother had locked herself in a room.
He peeped through a keyhole and saw the woman sitting on the window ledge, preparing to jump off the building.
When he could not persuade her to open the door, he called the police.
Several policemen, who arrived at the scene within minutes, broke down the room door and pulled the woman to safety. The woman’s hand was found to be bleeding.
Mei Shuang’s lifeless body was found on a bed in the room.
She had been smothered to death with a pillow about 12 hours earlier.
Police learnt that after killing her granddaughter, the woman had severed her ring finger with a cleaver, hoping she would bleed to death.
The woman’s severed ring finger and a pail containing a considerable amount of blood were found in the kitchen of the house.
A note by the woman that read “My heart is not happy, I wish to die” was also found in the apartment.
The woman and her family ran a restaurant which had run into financial losses that led to frequent quarrels among them.
Investigators also learnt that the woman had stopped taking her medication for her mental health condition.
The woman, whom neighbours described as friendly and close to her granddaughter, was arrested and sent for psychiatric evaluation.
It is believed that her mental condition did not allow for her to be charged and probably saved her from the gallows.
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