Managing Director Stabs Pregnant Wife After Receiving Financial Report With Poor Numbers
In January last year, 30-year-old Isabel Elizabeth Francis was found dead in an Ang Mo Kio flat.
Her husband was later charged with her murder.
On Thursday (26 Oct), the man, 35-year-old Singaporean David Brian Chow Kwok-Hun, was sentenced to seven years’ jail.
More details about the tragedy have also come to light.
Apparently, it all started with a financial report showing poor numbers that later turned out to be inaccurate.
Man felt stressed over supposedly poor company finances
According to Channel NewsAsia (CNA), Chow was the managing director of KnowledgeTree Training Centre, a company that offers security courses.
Source: KnowledgeTree Training Centre, for illustration purposes only
Sometime in December 2021, he asked his accounting staff for the firm’s half-year financial report.
Seeing that the numbers inside were unusually low, Chow asked the staff to check the report again.
The following month, the staff told Chow that the numbers in the report were accurate.
This made Chow very worried that the business was failing and he began to suffer from insomnia, getting just an hour or two of sleep each night.
His behaviour did not go unnoticed, and his mother, brother, and the manager of his company assured him that the business was still making money.
CNA reported that the company had previously made S$1 million in profits.
Chow’s wife also arranged for him to see a counsellor, but it did not help much.
He soon started to see things in his head when he closed his eyes, such as a devil, marching soldiers, and a “scary doll”.
His father then booked an appointment with a psychiatrist. Things improved slightly for Chow, but he still had trouble sleeping.
Tragically, it turned out that the figures in the financial report were inaccurate all along and the company was doing better than he was led to believe, The Straits Times (ST) reported.
Stabs pregnant wife in order to ‘spare her’ & their unborn child
In the wee hours of 11 Jan 2022, Chow, still worried about his company’s performance and unable to sleep, spent time browsing his competitors’ LinkedIn pages.
Source: Airam Dato-on on Pexels, for illustration purposes only
He also discovered that one of his staff had failed to correct an earlier issue. This led to concerns that his mother would scold the employee, causing them to quit.
In fact, he was afraid that his entire team of workers would lose confidence in him and leave.
Suicidal thoughts later began to pop up in his head for the very first time.
However, he did not want Ms Francis to be ashamed of being married to someone who committed suicide.
He also did not want creditors to go after her and their unborn child.
Feeling like he had to do something, Chow considered killing his wife so that she and their child would be ‘spared’ and could “go to heaven”.
So, at around 5am, the man took a knife and went to the master bedroom, where Ms Francis was sleeping.
He stabbed her in the abdomen and said, “Sorry, I have no way out.” Chow also stabbed her multiple times in the back, head, and neck.
An autopsy later revealed that Ms Francis had suffered 10 stab wounds and five incised wounds. The stab wounds to her back and neck were the fatal ones.
8world News reported that Ms Francis was about 15 weeks pregnant with a girl at the time of her murder.
They got married in December 2019 and moved into their Ang Mo Kio flat in May 2021.
Man sentenced to 7 years’ jail
After his wife stopped moving, Chow then attempted to take his own life by stabbing himself and taking pills, asking for the “devil to take him”.
He stopped when he realised that his father was on his way to pick him up for work.
Not wanting anyone to think his father was guilty of murder, Chow called the police and said that he had killed Ms Francis.
Chow then unlocked the main door and lay down waiting for the authorities to arrive.
Upon their arrival, paramedics pronounced Ms Francis dead. Chow was conveyed to the hospital and was later arrested.
Citing a report from the Institute of Mental Health (IMH), ST reported that Chow had “catastrophic thinking that he would be bankrupt with no way out and had suicidal thoughts but felt that his death would bring shame to his wife”.
In court, prosecutors asked for nine to 12 years’ imprisonment for Chow. On the other hand, his lawyers argued for five to seven years.
In the end, Justice Pang Khang Chau sentenced Chow to seven years in jail.
Chow had pleaded guilty to one charge of culpable homicide not amounting to murder.
If you or anyone you know is in need of support, you can call these hotlines:
- Samaritans of Singapore Hotline: 1767
- Institute of Mental Health’s Helpline: 6389 2222
- Singapore Association for Mental Health Helpline: 1800 283 7019
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Featured image by MS News.
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