The 64-year-old father, who has been arrested and is currently facing a murder charge, allegedly confessed to the police that he killed his 35-year-old daughter during a dispute.
Mr Tan Tian Chye was arrested on Monday afternoon in an eighth-floor apartment at Block 171 Bedok South Road after his daughter, Ms Desiree Tan Jiaping, was found dead in the HDB unit.
The Chinese daily reports that Tan and his daughter were embroiled in a dispute that went on for five minutes before Tan allegedly used a bat-like object to strike his daughter. The daily reports that a remorseful Tan confessed this to the police and Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) officers before he added, “I killed my daughter.”
Ms Tan was found motionless, with a wound to the back of her head. Early reports indicate that she died after one strike to the head. According to the Chinese daily, the victim’s mother was heard wailing from her unit, “You take my life!”, for about half an hour.
A 17-year-old neighbour told the daily that she heard a woman crying, “I don’t want! I don’t want!” around 4.30pm that day: “The cries persisted for nearly 15 minutes and gradually got softer, presumably as the woman was brought downstairs.”
Another neighbour reported that they could hear crying from the apartment well into the evening, until about 10pm. It is believed that the crying both neighbours heard are from the grieving of the victim’s mother and relatives.
Yet another neighbour, 68-year-old retiree Mr Yun, said that he saw the victim’s mother crying at the foot of the block but did not expect that this was what happened. Sharing that Tan was a friendly man who would have coffee with him whenever they bumped into each other at the kopitiam, Mr Yun said:
“I saw his wife crying out downstairs and thought something might have happened at home, but didn’t expect it to be like this.”