Son, 19, charged with murdering father at Block 653 Yishun Ave 4

Seah Jie Kai Sylesnar, then 19, killed his father Eddie Seah Wee Teck, 47, at Block 653 Yishun Avenue 4 on October 10, 2022, after years of physical and verbal abuse. Following a heated argument in which his father taunted him and dared him to "chop someone with a knife", Seah slashed his father twice on the chest with a kitchen knife. Fearing his father would retaliate and kill him, Seah retrieved two knives and chased after him near the fifth-floor lift lobby, repeatedly slashing at his head and neck with the intention to decapitate him. His father collapsed on the fourth floor outside a neighbour's flat, bleeding from 24 wounds including a fatal laceration to the neck.

Seah, overwhelmed, shouted for neighbours to call police and lay beside his father. In his final moments, his father told him: "I'm sorry. I love you. Please forgive me." Seah was initially charged with murder, carrying a potential death penalty, but pleaded guilty to the reduced charge of culpable homicide not amounting to murder on September 30, 2024, and was sentenced to six years' jail. An IMH report concluded Seah suffered from chronic adjustment disorder with depressed mood and another specified depressive disorder at the time of the offence, which impaired his capacity to know the wrongfulness of his actions and control them. Court documents revealed his father was a chronic alcoholic with a history of gang behaviour who regularly abused his wife and children, caning them, breaking plastic balls on their heads, and throwing books at them.

• 10 Oct 2022mothership.sg
• 12 Oct 2022mothership.sg