Elderly man held after wife bludgeoned to death in home
Second murder case in city in four days after ‘heated argument’
PUBLISHED : Tuesday, 27 May, 2014, 3:17pm
UPDATED : Tuesday, 27 May, 2014, 5:34pm
Clifford Lo [email protected]
A screengrab of i-cable news footage showing the husband (hooded) arrested by police officers. Photo: SCMP Pictures
An elderly man was arrested for murder today after his 78-year-old wife was bludgeoned to death in a hammer attack in their Wong Tai Sin home.
The city’s second murder case in four days came to light when police received a call from the couple’s son at about 11.22am.
“The son told police that she was killed by accident during a dispute,” a source said.
Around noon, the hooded and handcuffed suspect, aged 76, was escorted by police from the couple’s flat in Wang Cho House, Wang Tau Hom Estate in Fu Yue Street. He is being questioned at Wong Tai Sin police station
“An initial investigation showed the couple had a heated argument and the woman was attacked with a hammer,” the source said.
A police spokeswoman said officers arrested her husband at the scene and seized a hammer inside the flat.
The flat was still cordoned off this afternoon as detectives examine the scene.
On May 23, a 47-year-old man was stabbed to death in an attack at Mun Hau Tsuen in Sheung Shui. Police arrested a 54-year-old man and seized a fruit knife in his waist bag in the vicinity.
There were two other murder cases last month. Police arrested three men in connection with the killing of a 58-year-old man who was found unconscious in Tsuen Fu Street, Tsuen Wan on April 28. He died in hospital two days later.
On April 4, a 37-year-old businessman was arrested for trying to kill his 67-year-old mother-in-law after she was found unconscious in a Lai Chi Kok apartment. Police reclassified the attempted murder case as murder when she died in hospital on April 8.
Police figures show there were 62 cases of homicide in the city last year, including the 39 deaths in the 2012 Lamma ferry tragedy, which were ruled to be homicide last year.
There were 27 reports of homicide in 2012, 17 in 2011 and 35 in 2010.
