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July 29, 2026

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Maid murders 73-year-old employer after being let off for stealing, gets life imprisonment

The maid had purportedly fallen for a love scammer, and repeatedly stole from her employers even after they discovered missing items and decided not to file a police report.

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SINGAPORE: A woman who came to Singapore to work as a maid had good relations with her employer’s family but later began stealing from them after allegedly being scammed three times.

Although she was caught by her employers, she was given a chance and retained because she was needed to look after the victim, a 73-year-old man with mobility issues.

One afternoon, after the elderly man falsely accused her of theft, the maid grew angry and suffocated him with a pillow.

Sumiyati, a 53-year-old Indonesian woman who goes by one name, was convicted of one count of murder on Wednesday (Jul 29) and sentenced to life imprisonment.

THE CASE

The court heard that Sumiyati was hired in 2019 to look after Mr Low Hoon Cheong and to perform household chores.

She lived in a flat at Block 222, Bishan Street 23 with Mr Low, his wife and his daughter.

According to a statement of agreed facts, Sumiyati had a good relationship with the victim, who was caring and gentle towards her.

In 2021, Sumiyati’s employers extended her contract before it expired and increased her pay from about S$570 (US$441) a month to S$700 a month.

However, from late 2021, she began asking for advances on her salary and also borrowed money from her employer’s family and a tenant in the unit.

She lied that she needed to buy a laptop for her daughter’s schooling, and that she had family emergencies in Indonesia.

In April 2022, Sumiyati began stealing from Mr Low’s wife. She stole several gold rings, a gold bracelet and gold earrings from a drawer that was unlocked and pawned these items for cash.

On Apr 21, 2022, Mr Low’s wife discovered that her bracelet was missing and confronted Sumiyati.

Sumiyati handed over pawn tickets for jewellery she had stolen.

Mr Low’s wife and daughter decided not to file a police report, since Sumiyati asked for another chance and the family needed her help.

Sumiyati claimed that she had stolen the items to get funds for a lawsuit in Indonesia.

According to her defence lawyer, Mr Mohamed Muzammil Mohamed, she had lost money to three scammers.

The first had entered into an online relationship with her in May 2020 but ceased contact after she transferred 25 million rupiah (S$1,790) to him.

The second claimed to be able to use black magic to make the first man marry Sumiyati and Sumiyati transferred him 60 million rupiah.

The third claimed to be a police officer in the Indonesian embassy in Singapore who could punish the first man and recover her money, promising a sum of 650 million rupiah.

THE MURDER

On the afternoon of Apr 28, 2022, Sumiyati stole money from the victim’s wallet while he was having lunch in the flat.

She then lied to him that she was heading out to buy ice cream and left the unit to remit money to a bank account in Indonesia.

When she returned, she stole more money while the victim was sleeping and left again to remit the cash.

When Mr Low woke up at about 3pm, he asked Sumiyati about his wife’s missing necklace.

Sumiyati denied stealing it, and Mr Low urged her to confess, or his wife would report it to the police.

After this, he went to his bed and used his phone until he fell asleep.

Sumiyati began plotting to kill him as she was angry at being falsely accused and worried that he would discover the theft of the cash.

She concluded that the only way to solve her concerns was to silence him, and that therefore he must die.

She ran through different plans in her head which she rejected – she decided against stabbing as she would have to clean up the mess, and against throwing him out of the flat as it would be difficult if he struggled.

She also did not want to strangle him and leave incriminating handprints on him.

As she was thinking about the method of killing, Sumiyati allegedly spoke to the third scammer who suggested using sleeping pills.

However, as she had no such pills, she decided to suffocate the elderly man with a pillow as she would not have to see his face and feel bad.

It would also leave no injuries and might look as if he died of natural sickness, she thought.

Sumiyati waited in the kitchen until she heard snoring at about 4.20pm.

She approached Mr Low on his bed and began suffocating him with a pillow.

He woke up and struggled, asking her what happened and what she was doing.

In response, she leaned her body into the pillow and held it there until he stopped moving.

She checked the clock and saw that it was 5pm and stole S$70, both Mr Low’s phones and a pair of earrings from his wife before leaving with her belongings.

She then sold the phone and remitted the cash she had before trying to meet the scammer, who had purportedly arrived in Singapore.

However, she waited for more than an hour and he did not appear or accept her calls.

Sumiyati claimed she wanted to surrender to the embassy but did not know her way there. She was arrested early the next day on an overhead bridge in the Bishan-Toa Payoh area.

Meanwhile, Mr Low’s wife returned home some time after 8pm and found that her husband was unresponsive.

She tapped him to try to wake him but he was cold to the touch. She then called her daughter, who asked her to get an ambulance.

A man responded to an alert on the volunteer life-saving myResponder application and tried to resuscitate Mr Low, but he did not respond.

When paramedics arrived, they found no signs of life and pronounced Mr Low dead.

An autopsy confirmed that the cause of death was consistent with suffocation.

Sumiyati was assessed and found to have no mental disorder at the time. However, she had borderline intelligence.

She claimed to have been hypnotised and controlled by another person, but there was no evidence of this.

Deputy Public Prosecutors Marcus Foo and Janessa Phua did not object to life imprisonment, and did not seek an additional jail term in lieu of caning.

MITIGATION

Mr Muzammil similarly called for life imprisonment. He detailed his client’s background – a repeat divorcee with only primary education, Sumiyati had to stop schooling at the age of 14 because of her family’s financial situation.

She took on simple jobs in Indonesia, was subjected to domestic violence in her first marriage which yielded a daughter, and later lived with her aunt.

This aunt cared for her other children when she later began working overseas, first in Malaysia before becoming a maid in Singapore in 2019.

When her contract was about to expire, she wanted to return to her country but was persuaded by Mr Low to extend her employment, said Mr Muzammil.

He claimed that Sumiyati did not have complaints against the victim but did not get on well with his wife. The increase in salary was another reason she stayed on, as she needed the money to support her kids in school.

Mr Muzammil claimed his client was cheated of money by three men whom she had only met online.

She became romantically attached to the first scammer as he promised to marry her, and she looked forward to a happy marriage after having bad ones.

The second scammer was a relative who practised traditional medicine and claimed he could help her make the first man marry her using his spiritual powers and black magic.

About two months before the murder, Sumiyati was in constant contact with the third scammer, known as Karyadi, who said he could help her recover the lost money.

Mr Muzammil claimed his client felt controlled and hypnotised by Karyadi, who claimed to practise black magic. However, he accepted that she had voluntarily killed Mr Low.

Sumiyati purportedly needed to pay Karyadi an advance sum of S$1,000 to cover administrative fees for her to be taken back to Indonesia to sign papers and obtain 650 million rupiah.

On the day of the killing, Mr Muzammil said his client was performing her chores when Mr Low nagged and scolded her, asking her to return stolen jewellery to his wife.

Sumiyati was angry at the “incessant nagging” and “hypnotised by black magic” and claimed that Karyadi asked her to kill Mr Low.

“I have been informed by Madam Sumiyati to extend her greatest apologies to the family of the victim and she seeks their forgiveness,” said Mr Muzammil.

In response, Mr Foo said the prosecution could accept that this was Sumiyati’s version of events – that she was a victim of scams.

However, the prosecution cannot accept as a fact that the scams had actually occurred.

In sentencing, Justice Mavis Chionh said this was a tragic case where Sumiyati purportedly lost money to scams, stole from her employers and killed the victim after becoming angry at a false accusation of theft.

She said that while there was a degree of premeditation and planning, this was limited as Sumiyati had hatched her plan spontaneously on the day itself.

The killing of Mr Low was a “horrific tragedy” but this was not a case where the offender exhibited viciousness or a blatant disregard for human life deserving of the maximum penalty of death, said Justice Chionh.

After the hearing, Mr Low’s sister told the press that she had no idea of the purported scams. Another woman with her said she was “disappointed”, presumably at the outcome.

They declined to say anything further.

For murder, Sumiyati could have been sentenced to death.

Source: CNA/ll

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