In 2014, a man slapped his two-year-old daughter so hard that she suffered a traumatic brain injury that led to her death.
The man and his wife then tried to conceal their crime by burning the toddler’s body in a metal pot and hiding it in a cardboard box under their kitchen stove, where it remained for over five years.
Their horrific actions came to light after the wife’s brother opened the box and showed the contents to her friends, who called the police.
The couple was arrested and charged with their daughter’s murder in 2019.
On Tuesday (19 Sep), a judge sentenced the man to 21.5 years in jail and 18 strokes of the cane. The woman’s case is currently pending.
According to Channel NewsAsia (CNA), the man, 35, had four children with his then-wife, whom he has since divorced. The woman also had two children from an earlier marriage.
The couple cannot be named due to a gag order to protect the identities of their other children.
However, High Court judge Aedit Abdullah said that it was important that the deceased be remembered by her name, Umaisyah, instead of “cold and impersonal nouns such as deceased or victim”.
In November 2011, Umaisyah’s father was sent to a drug rehabilitation centre.
Umaisyah, who was around three to four months old, was then placed in foster care as her mother was assessed to be an unsuitable caretaker.
Almost two years later in June 2013, the little girl went back to live with her parents.
Sadly, they were reportedly abusive towards her and their other children. The father would allegedly punch Umaisyah’s thigh, pinch her body, and use items like belts or hangers to hit her.
The abuse took a turn for the worse in March 2014.
After noticing that Umaisyah had soiled her diapers and was playing with her faeces, the couple became angry.
The woman allegedly slapped her daughter’s face and “flicked her lips” when the toddler kept crying.
But the deadly blow came from the girl’s father, whom CNA noted had taken methamphetamine that morning.
He slapped Umaisyah twice or thrice with such force that she sank to the ground and began gasping for air, with blood coming out of her nose and mouth.
As it turns out, she had suffered a concussive brain seizure as a result of a severe brain injury from the slaps.
Her father attempted to perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) on her, but his efforts were in vain.
Still, the couple did not take her to the hospital or call for help for fear of getting arrested for hurting her.
This is unfortunate as the prosecution believes that Umaisyah could still be alive today if she had received medical aid in time.
Instead, the couple tried to destroy evidence of their crime by burning their daughter’s body in a metal pot in the back of the man’s lorry.
Lianhe Zaobao reported that they then put the pot inside a cardboard box, sealed it up with cling wrap, and hid it under the kitchen stove in their Chin Swee Road flat.
Source: SRX, for illustration purposes only
Three years later in 2017, the Ministry of Education (MOE) contacted the couple after noticing that they had failed to register Umaisyah for Primary 1.
The woman claimed that her then estranged husband had taken the girl away. Meanwhile, the man said that she was with relatives in Malaysia.
That same year, the woman’s brother tried to discard the box containing Umaisyah’s remains as it was infested with cockroach eggs. He apparently did so despite her warnings not to touch it.
Fortunately for the woman, she managed to stop him and had the box freshly wrapped up again.
It wasn’t until she had to serve a prison term in 2019 that her brother finally had a chance to open the box. When he did so, he found a decayed object inside.
He showed the lump to his sister’s friends when they came over. Feeling uneasy about it, they promptly called the police.
The court heard that Umaisyah’s body was “charred beyond recognition”. Even so, experts were able to dig up a tooth and small bones from the debris.
In court on Tuesday (19 Sep), the judge sentenced the father to 21.5 years in jail. He would also receive 18 strokes of the cane.
He had pleaded guilty to one charge of culpable homicide for causing the death of his daughter and failing to provide medical aid, The Straits Times (ST) reported.
Furthermore, he pleaded guilty to three other charges of consumption of methamphetamine, ill-treating his six-year-old stepson, and rioting.
The judge took five charges into consideration during sentencing.
Judge Abdullah called this one of the worst cases of culpable homicide and said that the accused was clearly “a violent person ready to strike and hit”.
“Slapping a two-and-a-half-year-old child to such an extent that she would stop breathing and suffer a concussive seizure is unbelievable,” the judge said.
She could not resist, and she could not fight back, and she could not run away. What you did was vicious, callous and heinous. Umaisyah deserves so much more.
As for Umaisyah’s mother, her case is still pending before the courts.
The court granted her a discharge not amounting to an acquittal for her murder charge in March 2021.
Also read: Chin Swee Road Toddler’s Father Will Be Charged With Murder, Mother Faces 12 Charges
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Featured image adapted from Google Maps.
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