Neighbour tried to stop woman from jumping off 12th-storey parapet

He was chatting with a friend outside his first-storey flat when people started asking frantically if he had seen his neighbour, Madam Leow Lay Ling.

First was a fellow resident who asked him if he had seen "the woman with two dogs".

Then came the girlfriend of one of Madam Leow's sons, followed by the son himself. "Where's my mother?" he wanted to know.

Puzzled, the neighbour heard a commotion and looked up. To his horror, he saw Madam Leow sitting on the HDB block's 12th-storey parapet.

The man, who declined to give his name, told The New Paper yesterday: "We kept shouting at her, telling her not to jump.

"I was going to rush up to try to talk to her. But before I could get there, it was already too late."

Madam Leow fell to her death from Block 68, Lorong 6 Toa Payoh, at 11.45pm on Monday.

Her death allegedly sparked a fight involving several people believed to be her relatives and a man who claimed to be her boyfriend.

Emotions ran high as the fracas broke out near the block's lift landing, even as the police and Singapore Civil Defence Force arrived and cordoned off the area.

Police officers broke up the fight after 10 minutes and the assaulted man was arrested for being a public nuisance.

Neighbours described Madam Leow as a divorcee of over 20 years and a mother of four. She is said to have had a tumultuous relationship with the man, who is in his late 40s. They had been dating for over a year.

A neighbour, who wanted to be known only as Ms Teo, told TNP: "They would fight every now and then. Sometimes I would come home from work and hear them quarrelling from the ground floor."

Madam Leow's wake was held yesterday afternoon at a HDB pavilion a few blocks from where she lived.

The mood was sombre as about a dozen mourners, including one of Madam Leow's sons, took part in rites, which began at around 4pm.

This article was first published on Oct 1, 2014.
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