SINGAPORE — Family and friends of Madam Seow Kim Choo gathered on Sunday (June 12) to give her a final send-off, five days after she was killed, with some still coming to grips with the death of a woman they described as motherly and caring.

Mdm Seow, 59, was allegedly murdered at her Lorong H Telok Kurau home last Tuesday night. Her 23-year-old Indonesian maid, who goes by the single name of Daryati, has been charged with her murder.

Her husband, Mr Ong Thiam Soon, 57, who was sent to hospital that night with two slash wounds on his neck, was overcome with grief minutes before her body was to be cremated, and had to be helped out of the service hall at Mandai Crematorium by two men.

He declined to speak to TODAY when approached earlier in the day.

But one of his sons, Andrew, said his father was “still quite bad” when asked how he was doing.

At their home before the funeral procession began, those who knew Mdm Seow remembered her as a good-natured person. A cousin of Mr Ong’s, who did not give her name, said she knew Mdm Seow since the victim was in her 20s.

“She was an easy-going and friendly person. She’d always say a greeting when she saw someone,” she said in Mandarin. The hospital therapy assistant added that, like everyone else, she was shocked by what had happened.

Echoing this, a cousin-in-law, who declined to be named, said Mdm Seow cared for the young in their family and would always enquire after his children every time she met him.

“(She) knows how to care (and would ask), ‘how are your children doing, how are (their) studies’,” said the technician.

A long-time friend of Mdm Seow’s two sons said the victim was a “motherly” figure not only to him but to everyone she met. She would ask whether he had eaten lunch or needed drinks whenever they met, he added.

In the late morning, Mdm Seow’s coffin was brought out and placed in the tent set up in front of her home, where various prayer rituals began.

At one point, relatives and visitors tossed joss paper onto the ground as they encircled the coffin.

Held by pall-bearers, Mdm Seow’s coffin left her home at about 2.40pm on a funeral procession that included her sons and relatives trailing closely behind on foot for some distance.

Her hearse arrived at Mandai Crematorium just over an hour later for a funeral ceremony attended by about 100 relatives and friends.

When the moment arrived for her body to be sent for cremation, Mr Ong wailed out her name and pleaded in Hokkien for her to “come back”.

She was cremated at about 4.20pm as cries reverberated around the viewing hall, with her sons saying in Hokkien: “Mummy, when you see the fire, avoid it.”

Daryati’s case will be mentioned again in court on June 29. If found guilty of murder, she faces the death penalty.