He saw his wife drinking with some men outside a foodcourt opposite their block of flats at about 11pm on Sunday.
Mr Ng Tiong Lam, 59, did not confront them as he didn't want to wash his dirty linen in public. But what a foodcourt employee later told him made him furious.
It seemed that his wife, Madam Boon Soon Leng, 48, had been behaving intimately with a man earlier that night.
An enraged Mr Ng headed home to wait for his wife, who reached home soon after.
What ensued ended in tragedy with Mr Ng slashed on his left ear and both arms and Madam Boon falling to her death from their 10th-storey, five-room flat in Woodlands.
Mr Ng said his wife was reeking of alcohol when he confronted her about her behaviour with her drinking buddies.
Madam Boon was upset and denied that those men were her lovers, he said.
She also demanded to know who had told Mr Ng that she had been flirting, but he refused to tell her.
She then went into the kitchen and came out with a chopper, threatening to slash him with it, Mr Ng claimed.
He said he was not afraid as it wasn't the first time she had threatened him with a chopper.
Charged at him
"But on Sunday night, she charged at me and slashed both my arms and my ear with the chopper," Mr Ng told The New Paper in Mandarin last night.
He was speaking at his wife's wake at the void deck of their block.
Said Mr Ng: "I screamed in pain. She stopped only when I told her that my ear was dropping off.
"She slashed herself, too, before handing me a tablecloth to stop the bleeding. She then ran out of the flat."
Mr Y.T. Soo, 80, who lives two storeys above the Ngs, was sleeping when loud pounding on his door woke him up.
When he opened the door, he was shocked to see a woman covered in blood standing outside.
It took a while for him to recognise the woman as Madam Boon, his neighbour from a unit downstairs.
"Both her hands were covered in blood. Her clothes, too, were soaked in blood," Mr Soo told TNP last night.
"I was shocked and asked her what happened. She said to me, 'Tolong (help in Malay), please help me' and begged me to follow her back to her flat.
"I opened the grille gate and saw a trail of blood on the corridor outside my flat."
When Mr Soo arrived at the Ngs' flat, what he saw shocked him even more.
Mr Ng was also covered in blood.
Said Mr Soo: "I told them to call for an ambulance... Then, a commotion broke out again and the couple started yelling vulgarities at each other.
"The son shouted at the father, then the father shouted at his wife, and the son also shouted at his mother," recalled Mr Soo, who had no idea what the quarrel was about.
Shortly after, the paramedics arrived.
"Even as the paramedics were treating Mr Ng's wounds, his son was yelling at him," said Mr Soo.
"Suddenly, I noticed that the mother was no longer standing beside me. I looked around the room and couldn't find her.
"I ran to the kitchen, which was pitch-black as the lights weren't switched on. I didn't see her there either."
Then he heard a loud thud.
When Mr Soo looked out of the kitchen window, he saw Madam Boon lying at the bottom of the block.
The police received a call at about 11.30pm, requesting assistance at Block 725, Woodlands Avenue 6.
A spokesman said that when the police arrived, the body of a woman in her late 40s was found at the foot of the block.
Paramedics pronounced her dead at about 11.45pm.
A man in his late 50s was taken conscious to Khoo Teck Puat Hospital with injuries.
The police have classified the case as unnatural death and investigations are ongoing.
Quarrelled often
Mr Ng told TNP that he often quarrelled with his wife.
"We've been quarrelling since the day we got married," said Mr Ng, who runs an oil-recycling business.
He said he met Madam Boon, who was from Ipoh, in a nightclub where she was working as a beer promoter.
Madam Boon, a Singapore permanent resident, stopped working after they met.
After dating for eight months, the couple got married in 1984 as Madam Boon was pregnant with their first child.
They have two sons, aged 25 and 23.
The younger son was at home during their tragic fight, but he declined to be interviewed last night.
Said Mr Ng: "(My wife) loves to drink and I love to gamble. We had personality clashes and we are both hot-tempered.
"But I dote on her and I would buy her anything she wanted."
Mr Ng said his wife had suffered from depression for more than 10 years and that he couldn't remember when she had stopped taking her medication.
"She was always complaining about my gambling habits and how I didn't spend enough time with her," he said.
"I couldn't stand her drinking so much and getting into hanky-panky with other men after a few drinks."
But their neighbour, Mr Soo, who has known Madam Boon for two years and would drink with her almost every night, described her as a decent woman.
Said Mr Soo: "She...liked to confide in me. She often told me that she was upset with her husband for gambling and borrowing from loan sharks.
"We would drink and chat almost every night. She loved to drink, but she never touched me.
"We have even gone on holidays to Batam and Ipoh together with other friends. She is a very proper woman."
Neighbours whom TNP spoke to were shocked to learn of Madam Boon's death.
They said that the couple quarrelled often and they had thought nothing of Sunday night's commotion in their flat.
Topic: A wife slashed her husband arms and ear (Read 1067 times)