Thai woman jailed 5½ years for stomping Singaporean lover to death
He saw his Thai lover dancing with a male stranger in a club and became jealous. This led Lee Yang Boo, a 55-year-old Singaporean, to quarrel with Praphutta Sukanya in their rented flat and his death after his 43-year-old lover stomped on his head.
For the offence committed on 1 March 2015, Sukanya, who is a Singapore permanent resident, was jailed five and a half years on Thursday (16 March) after she pleaded guilty to one charge of culpable homicide not amounting to murder at the High Court. She entered the plea in Thai before Judicial Commissioner Foo Chee Hock.
Reading from the statement of facts, Deputy Public Prosecutor Mohamed Faizal said that the couple were cohabiting in a rented flat in North Bridge Road when the incident happened.
The court heard that Sukanya and Lee were drinking with another friend at a club near Jalan Sultan Road the night before the incident.
Lee got jealous after he saw Sukanya dancing with a Chinese male stranger. He intervened and pulled Sukanya back to their table before scolding her for her action.
Sukanya then left the club first to meet a friend at Golden Mile Complex and returned to the rented flat at midnight. Lee returned a while later with a few cans of beer and the couple continued drinking in the flat.
The lovers got into an argument while drinking because Lee suspected that Sukanya was having an affair with the man who danced with her earlier.
Sukanya claimed that Lee had cursed at her and her elderly parents. She brought her lover to bed and he fell asleep shortly afterward.
The fatal fight
After waking up a while later, Lee continued to berate Sukanya, who claimed that her lover punched her.
The couple got into a fight during which Sukanya kicked Lee’s thigh, causing him to lie sideways on the floor. Sukanya then stomped on his head with her right foot at least once. The impact of the stomping was so forceful that it caused fractures in Lee’s skull, the prosecution said.
The court heard that Sukanya helped Lee onto the bed but he kept slipping down and ended up lying on the floor with his face facing the bed. Lee cursed at Sukanya and her parents again. This made Sukanya lose her temper again and she hit him repeatedly on his face, body and limbs despite Lee begging her to stop.
After the assault, Sukanya helped Lee back to bed but noticing that he had difficulty breathing, she ran out of the flat to seek for help.
A neighbour that Sukanya met at a lift landing called the police. Lee was conveyed to Tan Tock Seng Hospital and was pronounced dead at 6.43 am.
Pushing for a minimum jail term of six years, DPP Faizal pointed out that Sukanya brutally assaulted her victim, which caused him to sustain multiple injuries. An autopsy on the victim showed that he suffered from 47 injuries and succumbed to fatal head injuries.
Sukanya’s lawyer, Michelle Ng, said that her client had come clean a day after the crime and that she immediately went to get help from a neighbour after the incident.
