TRAGEDY IN SLIPPER MAN'S HOME

ANGUISH & ANGER
• She sighs and wails after learning daughter slashed on neck at home
• She wants justice to be done

HER heartbreaking sobs and wails pierced the quiet Paya Lebar neighbourhood yesterday afternoon.

A distressed Madam Hunag carrying her grandchild out of the house. -- Pictures: DAVID TAN, LIANHE WANBAO

For Madam Huang, 71, who came from China, this was to have been a happy time. A time to fuss over her daughter who had just given birth. A time to kiss and cuddle her newborn grandchild.

But instead, her son-in-law Tan Lead Sane, 34, is dead after being stabbed.

Her daughter Ms Wang Meizhu, 35, is in a serious condition in hospital with slash wounds.

Another relative, Wu Yunyun, has been arrested in conjunction with the Saturday morning tragedy.

Wu, 26, a China national, is the wife of opposition party member Tan Lead Shake, 39.

Mr Tan Lead Sane, his brother, was found dead, clad in a pair of shorts in his bedroom by police.

Madam Wang, also a China national, is warded in Tan Tock Seng Hospital (TTSH).

Her condition is said to have stabilised yesterday.

And while Madam Huang was obviously distraught over the tragedy, she appeared calmer than on Saturday night when she was sobbing hysterically.

Yesterday, she told reporters briefly that her daughter is 'better'.

Madam Huang had been living with Mr Tan Lead Shake and at least 10 family members in the double-storey house since May when her grandchild was born.

She had come to Singapore with her younger daughter.

Yesterday evening at around 4.50pm, Madam Huang returned to the home to get some things.

Clad in a simple dark blue top and black pants, the short-haired woman appeared frail and her eye bags indicated a lack of sleep.

But even as she occupied herself with packing items, presumably for her daughter, from the second floor of the house, her cries in a native Hunan tongue, a Chinese dialect, could still be heard.


While reporters at the scene could not understand what she said, her sorrow needed no translation.

Her wails and heavy sighs spoke volumes.

But one line she spoke that was understood, indicated her strong desire to see justice being done.

She had earlier told Shin Min Daily News on Saturday night that her daughter was a 'very poor thing'.

Madam Huang also reportedly used hand actions to show where her daughter was slashed on the neck.

She had pointed to her own nostrils and mouth to indicate how her daughter's mouth and nose had been filled with blood.

But Madam Huang declined to say much yesterday.

After packing items in plastic bags, she left the house to deliver them to a waiting red car along Upper Paya Lebar Road.

She then returned shortly to the house for a few minutes before leaving in the same car.

It is understood from reports that there had been unhappiness in the Tan family home.


Besides Mr Tan Lead Shake, a member of the National Solidarity Party (who is otherwise dubbed the 'Slipper Man'), his brother and their families, the place was also home to his mother.

There has been no sighting as yet of Lead Shake's father, Mr Tan Soo Phuan, 72, former chairman of the Democratic Progressive Party.

The patriarch of the family reportedly moved out after his two Chinese national daughters-in-law moved in.

While one mother mourns, Mr Tan Lead Shake's wife has been arrested in connection to the murder.

This morning, Wu will be charged in court with murder, which carries the death penalty.

Residents and business people in the area painted the accused as a quiet, unassuming woman.

One of Wu's last meals before the tragedy had been a dish of chicken rice served at the Guoxian Gourmet coffee shop along Upper Paya Lebar Road.

Coffee-shop manager Lau Kwek Heng, 48, who has worked there for seven years, said he last saw Wu last Friday afternoon at 2pm.

He told The New Paper that she had sat alone eating the $2.50 plate of chicken rice and appeared quiet.

He said: 'She's usually smiling and she will say 'hello' and is soft-spoken.'

Mr Lau described Wu as a petite, skinny and pretty. He said she would frequent the coffee shop about three or four times a week, either by herself or with her two children.

Neighbours described the two brothers Lead Shake and Lead Sane as being 'very friendly'.

A male neighbour who declined to be identified described the dead man as someone who was 'very polite, very nice'.

He said: 'That's why we are very shocked. I wouldn't think anybody would want to do this to him.'

Another resident, Madam Neo Her Hong, 57, a fish wholesaler, said sounds of people quarrelling could be heard sometimes from the Tans' house.

She said: 'You hear voices, but I don't know what they are saying exactly and who is scolding whom.'

Lead Shake also arrived at the family home shortly after Madam Huang arrived.

At the house, he appeared to pack clothing into a white duffel bag and left the house carrying a pair of child's scandals.

While he declined to comment much, he said his sister-in-law's condition was 'more stable and she seems better'.