IF witnessing a murder can be harrowing for an adult, imagine the trauma it would leave on a child, especially when it involves someone close.
At about 4pm on Sept 26, 1999, a five-year-old girl watched her mother being stabbed to death at their double-storey terrace house in Bukit Damansara, Kuala Lumpur.
Sarah Muhamad Suhaimi was at home watching her younger sibling Mohd Syafiq, then aged three.
Apart from the family’s Thai maid Ramlah, also at home were Sarah’s eldest sibling Mohd Fariz, then aged eight, her parents Muhamad Suhaimi Abdul Aziz, 39, a geologist and Faizah Arshad, a human resources executive, both employees of Petronas.
As Sarah played with her younger brother, an unnerving scream shook up the peaceful evening.
She rushed to check and saw her father, who was armed with a knife, violently breaking down a bathroom door, with Faizah in the bathroom screaming for help.
Sarah ran to Ramlah, who was asleep at the time, and shook her awake. Both went to the bathroom where they witnessed Muhamad Suhaimi stabbing Faizah.
Ramlah ran out of the house and hid behind a car while Sarah, who was sobbing, froze in her steps as she watched her father walking out of the bathroom with his clothes and feet covered in blood.
Her mother was lying face down, motionless in the bathroom.
As her father fled the house in his car, Sarah quickly called her maternal grandparents, who lived in Kluang.
“Mother is dead. Dad killed her,” she told her grandmother in between sobs.
Neighbours, alerted by the maid, came to their aid and rushed Faizah to hospital but she was pronounced dead by doctors.
She had 38 stab wounds all over her body.
Family and friends of the couple were shocked and puzzled by the incident as they saw them happily together at a carnival a week earlier.
Police launched a hunt for Muhamad Suhaimi in the Klang Valley but the geologist could not be found.
Two days later, police managed to trace Muhamad Suhaimi after he was involved in an accident with two Petronas tankers in Terengganu.
He suffered serious injuries and was warded at a hospital in Kuantan where he underwent several surgeries.
After he recovered and was discharged from hospital more than a week later, he was handed to Kuala Lumpur police and investigations into the murder case went full swing.
On Oct 11, 1999, Muhamad Suhaimi was charged at the Kuala Lumpur High Court with murdering his wife.
His lawyer told the court that the accident had caused the geologist to suffer from partial memory loss and speech problems.
During the trial, the court heard Sarah’s testimony.
A forensics psychiatrist, who treated Muhamad Suhaimi, also told the court that the accused suffered from a psychotic ailment known as delusional disorder.
The psychiatrist said the condition caused Muhamad Suhaimi to feel jealous and suffer from hallucinations.
He had apparently heard “strange voices” that led him to believe his wife was cheating on him.
After a lengthy trial, the High Court ruled on Aug 17, 2001 that the accused was of unsound mind when he committed the offence, and acquitted him.
The court ordered him to be held for psychiatric treatment at Hospital Bahagia in Tanjung Rambutan, Perak.
Over the next four years, the prosecution appealed against the verdict at the appellate and federal courts but both courts dismissed the appeals.
Muhammad Suhaimi was subsequently freed from hospital several years later and went to live with his father in Terengganu.
In 2009, he was in the news again when he laid claim to the assets of his dead wife.
However, the Syariah Court rejected his application and distributed the assets, worth RM320,000, to the couple’s children and Faizah’s parents.
