Maid slashes kids' throats, kills herself

26th February 2014

PETALING JAYA: An Indonesian maid was believed to have slit the throats of a baby and his 5-year-old half brother before turning the knife on herself yesterday.

The children’s grandmother made the gruesome discovery when she returned to their Taman Sri Putra, Sungai Buloh, home early from the family’s restaurant about 7.35pm.

The family had left for the restaurant at 5pm as per their daily routine, leaving the children in the care of the maid, identified only as Agnes.

The grandmother found the younger child, 18-month-old Melvin Selvan Joseph, and Agnes sprawled in the kitchen with three bloodstained kitchen knives nearby.

Sungai Buloh police chief Superintendent Junaidi Bujang said a police team despatched to the house when alerted by the grandmother followed a blood trail from the kitchen to an upstairs room.

There, they found the lifeless form of the elder child, Koay Jia Hiong, still holding on to a television remote control. (The two boys have the same mother. Koay is the son from her first marriage.)

Junaidi said initial checks found no sign of forced entry into the house, leading police to believe that it was a case of murder-cum-suicide.

He said Agnes, who was believed to have been in her 30s, did not have a work permit though she had been with the family for 1½ years.

The family had described the maid as “loving and good with the children” and never caused any problems.

She was believed to have killed Koay first, then Melvin, before slitting her own throat.

Junaidi said the maid and children lived in the house with their mother, her two sisters and parents as well as Melvin’s father.

The bodies were sent to the Sungai Buloh Hospital for post mortem.

Picture :- Police forensics team conducting their investigations at the crime scene in Taman Sri Putra.NSTP/Asyraf Hamzah