A VICIOUS and despicable plot was in the making but college lecturer Zara Eleena Omar Peter was too smitten to take notice.
The 23-year-old petite lass, who had a leg disability and walked with a limp, was in love with her student.
The student, Muhamad Zul Sharil Suhaimi, then aged 20, had only one motive – to seduce Zara Eleena and leech off her.
Zara Eleena, who hailed from Segamat, had moved to Taman Kinrara, Puchong, in 2011 when she secured a job to teach English at a local college.
As the only child, she was close to her parents, Omar Peter, a retired bank officer then aged 56 ,and Normaliah Mahmud, 59.
When Zara Eleena confided in her mother that she was courting her student, Normaliah did not object – a decision she lives to regret.
Just months into the relationship, Zara Eleena began noticing she was losing money she kept in her handbag.
On one occasion, cash, including her month’s salary was lost in an unauthorised withdrawal made at an automated teller machine.
She never suspected her boyfriend and she remained puzzled as to why she was losing cash.
Claiming that he had the gift of chasing ghosts, Muhamad Zul Sharil offered to help Zara Eleena.
In February 2012, when her parents were around, the self-proclaimed shaman, showed up at her Puchong house with several friends and they went about the place “in search of ghosts”.
He found a jewellery box containing gems belonging to Normaliah worth over RM100,000 and claimed it was “possessed by ghosts”.
About three weeks later, on March 8, 2012, Muhamad Zul Sharil turned up with his friends on the pretext of visiting Zara Eleena at her house.
The lecturer was at home with her father, who was there to take her back to Segamat for the weekend ahead.
After several hours at her house, Muhamad Zul Sharil left with his friends in Zara Eleena’s car at about midnight.
In Segamat, Normaliah became worried when her daughter and husband were not reachable the following day.
Zara Eleena’s colleagues were also concerned when she did not show up for work at the college.
Four days later, Normaliah decided to travel to Puchong to look for them.
When her calls to the house went unanswered, she called police who broke down the main door to gain entry, only to find the father and daughter dead.
They were found in separate rooms bleeding from their mouth.
Normaliah’s gems were also missing from the house.
A post-mortem later revealed they had been suffocated to death.
Police sprung into action and within days, Muhamad Zul Sharil and his friends were traced and arrested in Ampang and Cheras.
Part of the stolen jewellery were recovered from them and that the rest was sold to a jeweller.
On March 23, 2012, Mohamad Zul Shahril and his friends – Mohamad Sharafe Matt Noh, 19, Azizi Aizat Ibrahim, 20, and Muhamad Safwan Muhamad, 20, were charged with the murder of Omar and Zara Eleena.
During the trial, the court heard how they had strangled Omar with a T-shirt while Zara Eleena was smothered with a pillow.
On Oct 31, 2014, the High Court freed Muhamad Safwan but dealt the other three suspects with the death sentence. After an appeal by the prosecution, Muhamad Safwan was also given the death sentence. The noose awaits all four killers after the Federal Court upheld their conviction and dismissed their appeal against the death sentence.
