Schizophrenic Wife Suspects Husband Of Having Affair, Murders Him With Meat Cleaver While Asleep

An elderly woman in Hong Kong who suffers from schizophrenia and depression has allegedly murdered her husband with a meat cleaver while he was asleep.

The police have arrested the 73-year-old woman on suspicion of murdering her 69-year-old husband at their home in Kwai Chung, on Thursday.

The woman reportedly got the cleaver from the kitchen and attacked the victim on his head at around 4.30 a.m. local time (3:30 p.m. ET, Wednesday) while he was asleep in his bedroom. The couple’s 40-year-old daughter, sleeping in the next room, woke up hearing the screams and reported it to the police, according to news outlet South China Morning Post.

“The man managed to pin his wife on the floor and snatched the meat cleaver before officers arrived,” said Chief Inspector Wong Sun-lok of the district crime squad said.

The victim had at least six cuts on the head and was unconscious while he was taken to the hospital. He was pronounced dead later.

The police took the woman into custody and she was sent to the same hospital for medical evaluation. The initial investigation revealed that the elderly woman suffered from schizophrenia and depression for many years. She had recently started suspecting her husband of an affair.

Sun-lok said that the investigators suspect that the mental state of the woman triggered the incident, although they are probing into other possibilities. “She needed to attend regular consultations in hospital and take medication regularly,” Sun-lok said.

“After an initial investigation, the case was classified as murder. The 73-year-old woman was arrested in suspected connection with the case. Sustaining no superficial injury, the woman was sent to Princess Margaret Hospital in a conscious state. She is being detained for inquiries,” police said in a news release, reported Hong Kong Free Press.

The woman did not have any previous history of crime. The investigators found out that the neighbors have not witnessed any domestic violence from the household for the past 30 years.

In a similar incident in Singapore, a schizophrenic man allegedly strangled his 75-year-old father to death in November 2015, reported Today Online. Even though the court found that he caused his father’s death, the man was acquitted because of his mental state.