Loan shark harassment led to familicide

Couple changed mind about ending their lives after slashing wrists and poisoning children

A COUPLE, unable to endure the harassment of loan sharks over the huge debts they accumulated, decided they had had enough.

On the morning of Dec 1, 2006 at their unit in Desa Seri Puteri apartments in Kuala Lumpur, the tour guide and his wife, who sold fried chicken at a hawker centre, decided to end it all as a family.

They allegedly fed their three sons lethal doses of bleach before placing a kitchen gas cylinder next to the children with its valve open.

As they watched Seah Siew Tong, eight, Siew Mun, 10, and Siew Cheong, 12, writhing in pain, the couple attempted to take their own lives by slashing their wrists.

They bled from their wounds but a few hours later, the woman had a change of mind. She called the police for help.

She told the police that her three children were barely alive after taking the cleaning fluid.

Patrol policemen in the vicinity dashed over to the apartment but were unable to gain entry into the locked house as the couple were too weak to move.

As the policemen tried to force open a grille, a set of keys came flying towards them.

The children’s father, who could barely crawl, had flung it towards the policemen.

When the policemen got in, they were stunned to see the lifeless bodies of the three little brothers next to each other in a room.

The siblings were dead and their parents, who were in critical condition, were rushed to a nearby hospital.

Following treatment at the hospital, the couple survived the suicide attempt.

Police arrested the couple for investigations into the murder-cum-suicide case and the duo were ordered to be sent for psychiatric evaluation.

Police investigations showed that several loan sharks had turned up at the couple’s apartment several days before the tragic event to harass them over debts amounting to over RM100,000.