In The Straits Times on Friday was the news that Filipina maid Guen Aguilar -- she accused of killing and chopping-up her fellow maid and good friend Jane La Puebla on Sept 7, 2005 -- had pleaded guilty to and was subsequently convicted of manslaughter.
And for the first time on Friday, those of us who wondered what could have transpired on that fateful day finally got to read the details of the case.
To wit: The two domestic helpers were good friends. On Sept 7, Jane went to Guen's employers house to prepare lunch with her friend. They were chatting while working and everything was fine until Guen brought up the matter of the S$2,000 (Php66,360) loan she had extended to Jane, S$1,000 of which was loaned from a local loan shark.
(For perspective, a Filipino maid typically earns S$350 a month here in Singapore. In today's exchange rate, that is about Php11,600.)
Guen, 30, was said to have suggested that Jane, 27, sell her video and digital cameras to partly repay the debt, which made Jane agitated and she started raising her voice, according to the paper. Guen then tried to placate her while still attempting to settle the matter. But when the suggestion of selling the cameras was again mentioned, the two started to really fight.
They hit, scratched, pulled each other's hair, lunged for the other's throat. Guen bit Jane. The struggle went from the laundry area to Guen's bedroom where somehow Jane's blood got spattered on the walls, floor and mattress. And when Guen got the chance, she grabbed a cushion from her bed and smothered her friend.
After a few seconds, the report said, Guen lifted the cushion and she started sobbing because she thought she had killed Jane. But then Jane stirred so Guen strangled the younger woman until she finally stopped breathing.
For 2 days, Guen kept the body in her employers' house, inside a travelling bag in her room. On the third day and after her employers had left for the office, Guen then went to Mustafa Centre in Little India where she bought a cleaver, an axe, gloves, wallpaper, detergent, pillowcases, a bedsheet and some garbage bags.
Back in the flat, she then started the horrific task of dismembering the body. She placed the head and each of the limbs in separate plastic bags. These were then stuffed into a bag together with some newspapers.
The torso she wrapped in newspapers and a garbage bag which she also then stuffed into another bag.
That done, she then cleaned up the blood traces with the detergent, put up the wallpaper over the spots on the wall that remained stained even after her clean-up and changed the bloodied sheets and pillowcases.
By midday, she took the bag with the head and limbs by cab to Orchard MRT Station, where she dumped it near a mural wall.
She went home, took the second bag with the torso and this time went to MacRitchie Reservoir in another cab. When she got there, the cabbie was said to have even offered to help her carry her bag, an offer she refused. Alone later, she took the garbage bag out of the travelling bag and dumped it along a footpath.
She was back at her employers' condo by almost 3pm, her last act to conceal the crime being to dispose of the second travelling bag at the lobby of the building's basement carpark.
And how was Guen immediately tracked by the police? Inside the garbage bag containing the torso were newspapers, one of which was an International Herald Tribune page bearing the name and delivery address of Guen's employers.
For manslaughter, Guen faces either life imprisonment or up to 10 years in jail. She initially faced a murder charge but this was reduced to manslaughter early in the year due to her mental condition at the time of the killing.
Sentencing will be on May 29.
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