SINGAPORE: A woman was sentenced to 12 years’ jail on Friday (Jul 24) for fatally stabbing her married lover after their four-year relationship soured due to money troubles.
Li Ye, who was 37 at the time, stabbed her 56-year-old lover in the apartment they lived in at about 1.40am on May 8, 2024, leading to his death. The man was married to another woman.
Appearing in court in the standard purple prison outfit, the Chinese national, now 40, pleaded guilty on Friday to one count of culpable homicide not amounting to murder.
Deputy Public Prosecutors Grace Chua and Nicole Teo argued for 12 to 13 years’ jail for Li, citing multiple aggravating factors, including that the victim was also her romantic partner who lived with her.
“No partner is entitled to resort to violence,” said Ms Chua.
While Li may have been unhappy with her partner for not paying his share of the rent and using money meant for her daughter’s school fees to trade in foreign currencies, she should have sought to resolve the issues through lawful means, the court heard.
The prosecution highlighted Li had attempted to stab her lover with a pair of scissors just days before fatally attacking him with a kitchen knife.
Characterising the case as domestic violence, Ms Chua disagreed with the defence’s claim that Li had considered her lover to have trespassed when he entered the unit against her wishes.
He was the legal tenant and any claims that he was living there rent-free did not reflect the financial history between the couple, she said, noting that the man had supported Li and her children financially before he stopped paying rent.
On the day of the stabbing, the man was lying in the bed they shared, using his phone and “essentially minding his own business” when Li returned home, the prosecution argued.
When she demanded he leave the unit, he walked to the kitchen and did not engage or fight back, Ms Chua said.
After he refused to leave, Li picked up the knife, and the man had tried to de-escalate the situation, holding the hand that she was using to hold the knife and telling her to calm down, she added.
In mitigation, Li’s lawyer Rayner Gooi of Panzer Law Corporation said she was a mother of two who had been pushed to the limit and felt forced to resort to extreme measures.
“She did not desire this outcome and deeply regrets that things turned out this way,” he added, noting that once Li realised what had happened, she was quick to try and render help, did not try to escape, and stayed with him until the police arrived.
Her lawyer also shared that he had been instructed not to contest the prosecution’s position on sentencing, as Li was concerned that the court might think she was not wholly remorseful or repentant for her actions.
HOW THEY MET
Li and her lover met in September 2019 when she was working as a performance artiste manager at a nightclub that the man frequented. He told her he was in the midst of divorcing his wife, and they began a romantic relationship in mid-July 2020.
Li and her son soon moved in with the man, who paid the rent for their apartment.
At the time, Li had lost her job as a performance artiste manager and was working in a trading company. The man worked as a manager of a medical instruments company.
They moved into another unit, where the fatal stabbing took place. The man paid S$3,200 (US$2,400) in monthly rent.
He quit his job in late 2021 but continued to support Li and her son, saying he was earning money through foreign exchange trading.
In January 2022, Li arranged for her daughter from another previous marriage to move from China to also live with them in Singapore. She told her two children to treat the man as their godfather and address him as “daddy”.
Later that year, Li stopped working at the trading company. The man invested S$30,000 to help Li open a shop selling gowns to performance artistes. He also paid S$2,000 a month in rent for the business.
But financial troubles soon strained the relationship. After suffering heavy losses in forex trading, the man began borrowing money and stopped contributing consistently to household expenses.
Li eventually began paying half the rent, before taking over the full monthly rent herself by December 2023. She also accused him of using S$3,500 meant for her daughter’s school fees for forex trading.
The relationship became increasingly volatile. The man repeatedly caused scenes at the nightclub where Li worked, costing her at least two jobs, while arguments between them sometimes turned physical.
After Li tried unsuccessfully to end the relationship in early 2024, the man insisted on remaining in the apartment because he was the legal tenant.
EVENTS LEADING TO HIS DEATH
Three days before the fatal stabbing, the man sent Li multiple emails demanding to return to the unit. At about 3.40am, the man arrived at the unit and was only let in when he woke Li’s son up to open the door.
An upset Li left the apartment to take a walk. When she returned at 5am, she cut up his clothes before hitting him with a cardboard roll while demanding that he leave.
She then tried to strike him in the chest with a pair of scissors, but the man blocked the attack with his hand. He suffered minor injuries and remained in the apartment.
On May 8, 2024, Li returned home from work at about 1.20am to find the man lying on their shared bed. Remembering his repeated failures to contribute to the rent and his earlier insults, she demanded that he leave.
When he refused, she followed him into the kitchen, picked up a kitchen knife that had a 15cm blade and continued insisting that he leave. As the man tried to calm her down while holding her arm, Li stabbed him once in the upper left chest.
She immediately tried to help him while asking her daughter to call for an ambulance. He was taken to hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 2.30am.
Li was arrested later that day.
TEARS IN COURT
In delivering his sentence, Justice Kwek Mean Luck agreed that this was a case of domestic violence committed at home and that Li was the aggressor, despite the history of conflict and grievances between the couple.
Li wiped her tears as the judge read out her eventual sentence of 12 years’ jail, backdated to when she was first arrested in May 2024.
Noting that the defence had asked for four-and-a-half to seven-and-a-half years, the judge said he appreciated Li’s instructions to not contest the prosecution’s sentencing submissions.
Addressing a letter written by Li in mitigation, the judge said: “I appreciate the emotions that you feel as a result of this incident; that you are sorry to the deceased’s family, and that this also means you cannot be there to watch your children grow.”
But her actions come with consequences, which are reflected in her sentence, he added.
In her letter, Li said she has learned to accept what has changed and that she was ready to be sentenced, the judge noted.
“I hope that in serving your sentence in the days ahead, you will continue to grow, so that when the day comes when you can be with your children again, you will be who you want to be for them,” he said.