Maid jailed 12 years for killing employer's daughter

SINGAPORE — She had been acting strangely for months, believing she was possessed and even claiming to have seen a ghost in a mirror, shortly before she strangled her employer’s daughter who had done her no wrong. 

Thirty-year-old Tuti Aeliyah — who was found to be suffering from severe depression at the time of the offence — was today (May 25) sentenced to 12 years’ jail, after the Indonesian maid pleaded guilty to culpable homicide not amounting to murder. 

On the morning of  Nov 14, 2013, Shameera Basha Noor Basha, the 16-year-old daughter of Tuti’s employer, was sleeping when the Indonesian maid went into her room and smothered her with a pillow. 

The teenager awakened and struggled with Tuti, who then stabbed her with a kitchen knife. After Shameera fell to the floor, Tuti wrapped the girl’s school pinafore around her neck and pulled both ends. The girl was strangled to death.

When Shameera’s mother, Madam Zubaidah Leyman, returned to the Tampines Street 82 flat at about 12.30pm — more than four hours after Tuti went into the girl’s room — the maid told her she had murdered Shameera.

Shocked, Mdm Zubaidah sought help from a neighbour, who called the police.

The court heard that Tuti, who is from West Java, began working for Mdm Zubaidah in April 2012.

Dr Bharat Saluja of the Institute of Mental Health said Tuti’s judgment was significantly impaired at the time of the offence as she was suffering from severe depression, with psychotic symptoms.

In sentencing Tuti, High Court judge Woo Bih Li said there were no indications that her severe depression was caused by her employer’s family. While he sympathised with her mental condition, he also noted that she had killed an innocent youth, a Secondary Four student at Tanjong Katong Girls’ School, who had done her no wrong.

The court heard that Tuti began acting differently a few months before her offence. There were no reports of ill treatment by her employers, but Tuti requested for a change of employers because she felt Mdm Zubaidah was “too strict”. 

The former maid’s lawyer Nasser Ismail, engaged by the Indonesian Embassy here, said in mitigation that by early June 2013, her employer was so concerned as to seek help from her maid agency. 

Tuti told the Singapore agency as well as her Indonesian agency that she wanted to go home and believed she was possessed. She was “unfortunately” persuaded to continue working for her employer, Mr Nasser said.

She was also facing financial and personal problems, having suffered a late-term miscarriage months before coming to Singapore, and having her husband disappear shortly before her offence when she stopped sending money to him, said Mr Nasser.

However, the prosecution said it was unable to verify these facts.

Mr Nasser added that on the morning of the offence, Tuti felt a ghost suddenly appeared in the mirror when she went to the toilet. She then wanted to go into her room to kill herself.

She allegedly saw Shameera’s EZ-Link card on the washing machine and went into the victim’s room. 

But Deputy Public Prosecutor Charlene Tay-Chia said Tuti showed the capacity to comprehend events and appreciate the wrongfulness of her actions.

And although Tuti had attempted suicide by drinking fabric softener, inflicting superficial cuts on her wrist and trying to hang herself in the toilet after killing Shameera, Ms Tay-Chia said she aborted each attempt for “cogent and sound reasons”, backing out after she felt pain.

Tuti apologised to her victim’s family, who was not in court, after she was sentenced today. 

She was allowed to speak briefly to her father Rodi (who goes by one name), whom she had not seen for over three years.

Through Indonesian Embassy counsellor Sukmo Yuwono, the 70-year-old farmer said he told Tuti to follow the rules in prison and complete her sentence.