The Penang Municipal Council staffer crept into his 50-year-old wife Cheong Swee Lin’s bedroom on Saturday and poured a bottle of acid on her and their daughter, The Star reported.
After the 17-year-old girl raised an alarm, neighbours took them to a hospital where his badly burnt wife slipped into a coma and later died.
The girl, Tan Hui Lan, is in the hospital’s intensive care unit and doctors fear that she can lose her eyesight.
Penang police chief Ayub Yaakob said the 52-year-old man later gave himself up at a police station shortly after the incident. He said the relationship between the husband and wife had deteriorated in the past few years and that the wife was the primary target. The police have recovered the acid bottle at the scene and are trying to find out why the man attacked his wife and daughter. If charged, the man could face a penalty of death by hanging.
Published 25 October 2009, 19:21 IST