Ang Mo Kio double death: Woman killed mum and took her own life, says coroner

A police investigator at the kitchen window of the sixth-floor unit at Block 105 in Ang Mo Kio Avenue 4 where the dismembered body of Andrea Tay Su Lin was found at the foot of the same block on the morning of June 4, 2014. -- PHOTO: SHIN MIN
A police investigator at the kitchen window of the sixth-floor unit at Block 105 in Ang Mo Kio Avenue 4 where the dismembered body of Andrea Tay Su Lin was found at the foot of the same block on the morning of June 4, 2014. -- PHOTO: SHIN MIN

SINGAPORE - A woman killed her 75-year-old mother and then took her own life by leaping from her sixth-floor kitchen window in Ang Mo Kio, a coroner said on Wednesday.

Delivering his findings, State Coroner Marvin Bay said sales promoter Andrea Tay Su Lin, 51, attacked Madam Rosaline Lim, a cleaner, with a knife and chopper in the living room of their flat at Block 105 Ang Mo Kio Avenue 4 on June 4 this year.

Based on evidence from various witnesses, especially Tay's 17-year-old daughter, Germaine, Mr Bay said it is strongly believed that Tay inflicted extensive injuries on her mother leading to her death.

Mr Bay said that while Tay had not been formally diagnosed with any specific mental condition, her extreme actions that night and her depressive episodes and paranoia showed bizarre behaviour which suggested that she was in an unsound state of mind at the time of the attack.

Madam Lim, who suffered hundreds of cuts which were mostly inflicted after death, died from multiple stab and incised wounds.

The inquiry heard that days and weeks before the incident, Tay had been behaving strangely.

She had a poor relationship with her mother, whom she blamed for her grandmother's death. She and her daughter returned from Malaysia to live with Madam Lim about 10 years ago.

Tay accused her mother of casting spells on her but the mother denied this.

Germaine told police that she noticed her mother's condition worsen a few days before the incident. On one occasion, her mother woke her up and asked why she was "sucking her energy'' and what she was doing to her.

On the day of the incident, Germaine was asleep at about 4.20am when she was woken up by her grandmother's screams and her mother shouting: "It is not my fault. It is your fault. Why must you do this to me? Why must you harm me?'' She locked her door in fear.

She called her father, Mr Peh Hock Leong, 58, who advised her to call emergency services which she did.

When police and paramedics arrived, they could not get in but could hear a woman's voice from inside.

It was only after Mr Peh got the house keys from her daughter who had thrown them down that the officers got in. They saw Madam Lim on the floor in a pool of blood and Tay in the kitchen. Tay turned around and climbed up the parapet and jumped. Her legs were severed from the knee when she hit a laundry rack on the third floor.

Some parts of Madam Lim's body were missing during the post-mortem the next day. Police went back to the scene and found her eye balls and part of a tongue on a grass patch. Madam Lim's right lung is still missing.

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