‘Today I killed my wife’, man writes in diary

MELBOURNE - A man killed his mentally ill wife in Australia and wrote about the murder in his diary.

The 58-year-old man termed the murder “a win-win situation” because his daughters were “useless” and if he died there was no one to care for her, The Age newspaper reported.

Hung Kiat Tan was sentenced to life imprisonment by Brisbane Supreme Court Wednesday after he pleaded guilty to the murder of Siew Kee Ang, who he had cared for full time since 2004.

The 53-year-old woman, who suffered from schizophrenia, died at the couple’s Inala home in March last year after Tan gave her a fatal dose of her anti-psychotic medication and wrote about the murder in his diary.

The man admitted he had given her the anti-psychotic tablets after he became angry at her for cutting the wire to his stereo speaker. He made reference of his anger in his diary, in which he wrote: “This could be the last straw. Today I kill my wife. No joke.”

The court was told Tan called an ambulance the morning after he fed his wife 84 tablets, “a couple at a time”. Paramedics arrived to find the woman dead in her bed.

Tan told police: “You know, I killed my wife. By giving her all the tablets, my intention was to kill her. It’s not an accident, ok, it is a murder.”

He said he feared he would die and there would be no one to care for her.

“Because I have to have a contingency plan. My daughters (are) useless. They can’t even look after themselves. It is best that I kill her. She can wait for me. It is a win-win situation for everybody,” he said.

The couple had two adult children. One was estranged from the family and the other had refused to write a victim impact statement for the court.

Justice Glenn Martin said he understood Tan would have been under considerable emotional pressure having to care for his wife who was “suffering from the ravages of schizophrenia”.

“There is only one sentence I can impose … you are imprisoned for life,” he said.