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Woman found dead in Tampines flat; man arrested

SINGAPORE — He seemed no different from any other tenant, newly arrived to work in Singapore, and had explained that his wife might stay over for visits from time to time when he moved into the flat on Tuesday.

A screengrab from a Channel NewsAsia video showing a blood-stained stairway in the vicinity of the alleged murder in Tampines.

A screengrab from a Channel NewsAsia video showing a blood-stained stairway in the vicinity of the alleged murder in Tampines.

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SINGAPORE — He seemed no different from any other tenant, newly arrived to work in Singapore, and had explained that his wife might stay over for visits from time to time when he moved into the flat on Tuesday.

Less than 24 hours later, the flat in Block 503 Tampines Central 1 became a scene of horror, with those sharing the unit with the man opening the door to his room to find the body of a woman sprawled on a mattress.

The man, 37, was later found at a nearby block, and arrested by the police in connection with the suspected murder of the woman.

At about 11.43pm on Tuesday, the police had responded to a call for assistance at Block 503 Tampines Central 1, and found the body in the bedroom of a unit on the seventh floor.

She was pronounced dead on the scene at 12.10am.

Channel NewsAsia said the man was bleeding profusely when he was arrested on the ninth floor of Block 505. Trails of blood were found running down the block’s walls and in a stairwell. The blood was later washed off by cleaners using hoses.

A tenant living in the same unit said nine people were living in the three-bedroom flat.

On Tuesday night, an argument between the couple — both Chinese nationals — broke out in their room. The tenant, who declined to be named, had been at work at the time, but was told by another tenant that the argument was “extremely heated”.

The quarrel was said to have lasted about 10 minutes, before things went quiet. The tenant said the man was seen by other tenants leaving the room and locking the door. They said he left the flat with what appeared to be a knife wrapped in a piece of cloth, and did not appear to be hurt at the time.

The tenant, who is also a Chinese national, said the man was already gone when he returned home from work. “I knocked on (the couple’s) room door, but there was no response, so I decided to open it,” he said in Mandarin to reporters. He found the woman lying face down on a mattress on the floor, motionless. Leaving the room without touching anything, he called the police.

When TODAY visited the flat yesterday, at least seven other men and women were seen entering and exiting the unit, some of them carrying suitcases. They declined to speak to the media, although one told reporters he was returning to China.

The tenant said all the tenants in the unit would be moving out as a result of the incident, which has left them deeply shaken,

Neighbours whom TODAY spoke to said that they had not noticed anything unusual that evening. Madam Fadzilah, 35, said that the owners of the unit were a couple — a Malaysian man and a Chinese national woman.

Madam Ang, 59, a resident of Block 505 whose room window faces the stairwell where the suspect was arrested, said that she heard a commotion at around midnight and saw police when she peeked out of her window, but thought it was only an argument.

The police have classified the case as murder and investigations are ongoing.

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