A 74-year-old local man hacked his 71-year-old wife to death with a cleaver in their home on Friday afternoon following a dispute about dinner preparations, Judiciary Police (PJ) spokesman Cheong Siu Keong announced during a special press conference on Saturday morning.
The case is this year’s first homicide.
According to Cheong, the duo, married for 50 years, had often quarrelled over trivial matters. The man also sustained injuries while attacking his wife, also a local resident. The police took him in for questioning following his outpatient hospital treatment. He cooperated with the police while being questioned.
The man surnamed Cheong told the police that he is a retiree.
The spokesman said that the Public Security Police (PSP) notified the Judiciary Police at 5 p.m. on Friday of the case, which occurred in a residential flat in Nam Van district, where the duo lived with their daughter.
The spokesman said that the man and his wife argued again at around 4 p.m. on Friday in the kitchen when he was dissatisfied with the dishes she was preparing for their dinner, which later erupted into a fight, during which he used a cleaver to hack her repeatedly until she collapsed.
Shortly afterwards, the spokesman said, the daughter returned to the flat where she saw her parents lying near the kitchen on the floor in the living room, both covered in blood, so she called the emergency services.
According to the spokesman, the elderly victim was pronounced dead by doctors upon arrival at hospital.
A preliminary examination of the victim’s body showed that she suffered at least 16 wounds caused by the cleaver attack, with most of them on and near her head and neck, the spokesman said, adding that a forensic pathologist had preliminarily concluded that she suffered fatal wounds on the neck and the back of the head.
The man, who also sustained injuries while attacking his wife, was also rushed to hospital where he was confirmed as having sustained minor lacerations on his head that did not require sutures, the spokesman said.
According to statements from the Fire Services Bureau (CB) and the Public Security Police, the couple were rushed to the public Conde de São Januário Hospital Centre. The CB and PSP statements also identified the residential building where the case occurred as the Lake View Mansion residential estate located at the side of Nam Van Lake.
After receiving the PSP report, PJ officers went to the hospital from where they took the suspect to the PJ headquarters for questioning after he received outpatient treatment, the spokesman said, adding that other PJ officers went to the flat to launch a crime scene investigation where they found bloodstains all over the floor in the living room and the kitchen while they also found a bloodstained cleaver and a pair of bloodstained scissors in the kitchen sink.
According to the spokesman, the PJ officers concluded that the victim’s wounds were caused by this cleaver.
The spokesman did not elaborate on the pair of scissors.
The suspect has been transferred to the Public Prosecutions Office (MP) for further investigation, facing an aggravated homicide charge. If found guilty, he faces between 15 and 25 years in prison, according to Article 129 of the Macau Penal Code.
The pair of scissors and the cleaver, both bloodstained, are displayed in a pressroom during Saturday’s press conference. – Photos: Maria Cheang Ut Meng
Judiciary Police (PJ) officers escort the hooded aggravated homicide suspect from the PJ headquarters in Zape to a PJ vehicle on Saturday.
