Teen domestic worker from Myanmar given life sentence for Singapore murder case
A chilling case emerged today in Singapore as a young domestic worker faces life imprisonment for fatally stabbing her employer, a 70 year old woman, 26 times. The shocking event reportedly arose after the victim threatened to send the maid, originally from Myanmar, back home. The case became murkier upon discovering she had submitted false age information.
Zin Mar Nwe arrived in Singapore for employment in January 2018. Despite her passport indicating she was 23 years old, subsequent bone age testing conducted by a hospital revealed her actual age to be only 17, several news outlets reported. Further investigations found that she was instructed by a maid agency representative to state her age as 23.
The horrific incident took place in June 2018 after the elder employer allegedly threatened to return Zin Mar Nwe to her representative country. While the older woman was watching television, the young maid stabbed her, leading to her death. Zin then gathered her things, washed the knife, changed her clothes, and fled. She was apprehended at the maid agency office. Initially, she denied committing the act, blaming it on two men, but eventually admitted to the crime.
Zin’s lawyer, Christopher Bridges, proposed that she may have been suffering from a mental condition, citing psychiatrist Dr Tommy Tan’s opinion that she was struggling with stress, anxiety, and depression. He stated that she was tormented while adjusting to her new environment.
The presiding judge, Andre Maniam, rejected this defence. He highlighted that the offender reacted with anger towards the deceased and was well aware of her actions. He also noted that she remembered the stabbing details and could recount the incident to the police. Judge Maniam said…
“She demonstrated an ability to plan, and after the act, to take coordinated steps to clean up and leave her place of employment. All this suggests a level of functioning inconsistently with someone who was in a dissociative state at the time of the stabbing.”
Under the law, an offender who was below 18 years old at the time of the crime cannot be sentenced to death. Given that she was at such an age, the sole punishment available to the court was life imprisonment.
