Nine years’ jail for man who killed wife in jealous rage

SINGAPORE — Suspecting that his wife was having an affair with her supervisor, Zheng Xianghua stabbed her to death at home before trying to take his own life by slashing his neck and stabbing himself thrice in the chest. 

Zheng even climbed onto the parapet of an HDB block in Tampines, but was rescued and arrested by police officers at the scene before he could jump. A knife with a blade measuring 20cm was found on the ground floor, directly below the parapet.

On Monday (April 11), Zheng, 38, was convicted of culpable homicide not amounting to murder and sentenced to nine years’ jail.

Court documents show that the couple, both Chinese nationals, had met online in their country. 

Zheng registered his marriage to Wang Xueyan, who was 37 then, in June 2012. They later moved to Singapore separately to work — he as a delivery driver, and she as a component assembler — and stayed together in a rented room in Woodlands. 

Their relationship began to unravel following their return to Singapore after their wedding ceremony in China in June 2014. They quarrelled frequently over Wang’s regular use of make-up, something she never used to do. She also started to put her phone on silent mode, leading Zheng to suspect she was having an affair.
 
After their rental lease expired, the coupled stayed in separate flats to be near their respective workplaces. But Zheng got his wife’s roommate to keep tabs on her. The roommate told Zheng that his wife had bought a new handphone, which she used to communicate with her supervisor. This made Zheng 
upset.
 
The situation came to a head on Dec 16, 2014. Zheng had just moved into the storeroom of a flat in a neighbouring block and invited Wang to stay with him that night. They got into a quarrel in the Tampines flat, where Wang challenged Zheng to kill her. Enraged, he slapped her and hit her head before stabbing her in the chest and back 14 times with a knife. Zheng then ran to the top floor of a block opposite to commit suicide, but was pulled to safety by police officers after a two-hour stand-off.

The court was told that Zheng was diagnosed with pathological jealousy and severe depression. 

“What would have been normal jealousy and suspicions about the deceased’s infidelity gradually evolved with the progression of time into pathological jealousy, ultimately attaining delusional proportions even before the time of the offence,” a psychological evaluation report stated.

Defence lawyer Ng Shi Yang argued that his client had killed his wife “in the heat of the moment” and had merely showed her the knife to convince her to listen to him.

Disagreeing, Deputy Public Prosecutor Tan Si En countered that Zheng was instead trying to frighten his wife. “By bringing a knife into a room where two parties are having a quarrel, it can hardly be said that you’re (only) trying to show the other party you’re distraught.”

She added that Zheng had attacked Wang “viciously and repeatedly”, and had stopped only when she was drenched in blood.

In sentencing, Justice Choo Han Teck mulled over Zheng’s mental illness, the relationship between the couple and the circumstances in which the crime had been committed. 

“It’s not easy to ascertain the degree of retributive justice sufficient in homicides for persons suffering from mental illnesses,” the judge said.

Zheng’s sentence will be backdated to his remand on Dec 18, 2014.