Man stabs estranged wife 30+ times in Yishun flat while daughter watches

A man stabbed his estranged wife more than 30 times inside their unit at Block 342B Yishun Ring Road on the night of 13 August 2016, killing her in front of their 10-year-old daughter. Mohamad Jonit Adnan, then 37, had visited the flat that evening under the pretence of returning his two daughters after taking them to a nearby playground, before concealing a kitchen knife in his back pocket and entering his wife's bedroom while she slept. Sri Idayu Ghazali, 29, was found conscious but critically injured when police arrived at about 9pm after her sister raised the alarm; she was conveyed to Khoo Teck Puat Hospital and pronounced dead at 4.26am the following morning. Neighbours at the Yishun Ring Road block had reported hearing loud quarrelling from the unit around 8pm, followed by screams, then silence. Court documents revealed the couple had a troubled marriage since 2007 — Jonit was chronically unemployed, had fathered a child with another woman during an affair, and had been served with both divorce papers and a personal protection order by Idayu in the months preceding the killing. Jonit told investigators he had been informed by his daughters that Idayu had stayed out late the previous night, and flew into a jealous rage suspecting she was seeing another man. Originally charged with murder — which carries the mandatory death penalty — Jonit pleaded guilty to the reduced charge of culpable homicide not amounting to murder and was sentenced by the High Court on 12 July 2018 to 10 years' imprisonment.