On 2 December 2005, at his Dover Road flat, 44-year-old condominium caretaker Mohammad Zam Abdul Rashid attacked and severely assaulted his 38-year-old wife Ramona Johari (a production operator) after he accused her of getting close to a colleague. Ramona died from the assault two days later in hospital, and for having battered his wife to death, Mohammad Zam was charged with murder, but after he was diagnosed to be suffering from frontal lobe syndrome at the time of the offence, which caused him to suffer from diminished responsibility at the time of the murder, Mohammad Zam's murder charge was reduced to manslaughter. Mohammad Zam pleaded guilty and was hence jailed for life in September 2006, after the trial court found him to be a lingering menace to society and his condition required medication on a lifelong basis, as well as the sheer and relentless brutality exhibited by Mohammad Zam when he was battering his wife to death.
Fatal assault of Ramona On 2 December 2005, at about 1am, a woman was severely assaulted by her husband at their two-room matrimonial flat in Dover Road, Singapore.
During that same morning, the police responded to a report about a domestic dispute and arrived at the victim's flat, where they found 38-year-old Ramona Johari, a production operator, lying unconscious on her bed after she was brutally beaten, and she also sustained multiple injuries on her body (especially her head and face). Ramona's husband, 44-year-old condominium caretaker Mohammad Zam Abdul Rashid, was arrested as a suspect for the brutal assault, which he claimed to have done so after he allegedly seen his wife getting too close to another man, and he had to be restrained while the paramedics tended to his wife. Inside the flat itself, a 13-year-old boy, who was Ramona's nephew, was also present and had witnessed the assault. While tending to Ramona, paramedics found massive amounts of dried blood on Ramona's mouth and seven of her broken teeth next to her, and Ramona also sustained multiple bruises on her face, especially at her eyes. A paramedic officer additionally discovered a large bruise over the left side of her head, and it was deformed.
Ramona was subsequently rushed to National University Hospital (NUH) for immediate treatment. Further check-ups revealed that Ramona was bleeding from the gums and had several loose teeth, and a CT scan showed that she had acute right subdural haematoma and required emergency craniectomy (meaning removal of the skull). Through surgery, a huge part of Ramona's skull was removed and some of the bleeding were stopped, and the doctors also injected propofol and morphine to reduce Ramona's pain while she was in a comatose state. Still, Ramona remained in critical condition, and she never regained consciousness. On 4 December 2005, two days after the attack, Ramona died at the age of 38. An autopsy report later showed that the cause of Ramona's death was acute subdural haemorrhage, and signs of bronchopneumonia were also detected. Fractured ribs were also discovered during the autopsy. As a result of Ramona's death, the case was re-classified as murder.
During the same month, the funeral of Ramona took place, and it was reported that the relatives of both Mohammad Zam and Ramona were both saddened and outraged at the death of Ramona, and Ramona's nephew, who was not named since he was a minor, remained traumatized at the violent attack that ultimately taken the life of his aunt. Mohammad Zam's younger brother also told reporters that his late sister-in-law was a good person and she often cared for his well-being, and he regretted leaving the flat on the night of the assault. He also added that Ramona was a dutiful wife who often waited up for his elder brother. Ramona's nephew was also interviewed in July 2007 (the same month of Mohammad Zam's trial) to speak about his traumatic experience of seeing his uncle battering his aunt to death.
The case of Ramona's murder brought shock to the public, and it led to a public discussion on domestic violence between husband and wife; some other married women also spoke up about their past experiences of spousal abuse in light of the murder. Government data revealed that in 2004, the Family Court granted 3,200 personal protection orders (PPO), and in the first nine months of 2005, there were 1,900 PPOs granted.
Criminal charges After his arrest for the assault of Ramona, Mohammad Zam, then 44 years old, was charged with causing grievous hurt. Upon the death of Ramona two days since the assault, Mohammad Zam was brought back to court a second time and charged with murder on 6 December 2005. As Singaporean law allowed the death penalty for murder, Mohammad Zam faced the possibility of a death sentence should he be found guilty of murder. He was also remanded for psychiatric evaluation. Mohammad Zam reportedly requested for the judge to allow him to see his wife one last time.
This was not Mohammad Zam's first brush with the law. In 1981, Mohammad Zam was fined S$2,000 for theft, and he also paid a second fine of S$2,000 in 1990 for unlawfully possessing someone else's identity card. A decade later, Mohammad Zam was charged in court for three counts of molestation, and he was sentenced in August 2000 to serve 18 months' jail and received six strokes of the cane after he was convicted of two molestation charges. Aside from this, Mohammad Zam had also underwent several stints at drug rehabilitation centres due to drug addiction.
In June 2006, on the grounds of diminished responsibility (which was not revealed until the trial), Mohammad Zam's original charge of murder was reduced to a lesser offence of culpable homicide not amounting to murder, also known as manslaughter in Singaporean legal terms, and this amendment of the charge allowed Mohammad Zam to escape the death penalty for murdering Ramona. The possible punishment available for manslaughter was either life imprisonment or up to ten years in jail, in addition to a possible fine or caning.
Official version of the murder The following was the official version of the murder of Ramona Johari (and the events before and after the crime), based on Mohammad Zam's confession, the witness statements of Ramona's nephew and other facts uncovered during the police investigations.
Prior to the murder, Mohammad Zam and Ramona had been married for eight years with no children. This was not Mohammad Zam's first marriage as he had an ex-wife and teenage son who were not in contact with him, and he lived together with his wife, his younger brother Abdul Rahim (a divorcee) and the 13-year-old nephew of Ramona at their Dover Road flat. Sources reveal that Mohammad Zam, who was educated up to primary six, was the fourth out of seven children in his family and had a twin brother Ramziz, but he was estranged from most of his siblings. Mohammad Zam's parents died several years before he murdered his wife.
On the night of 1 December 2005, hours before the murder, Ramona returned home from work as usual, preparing dinner for her nephew and younger brother-in-law, before they watched television together, and Ramona was eventually left alone watching television after the nephew and brother-in-law went to bed. Mohammad Zam, however, was not present at home at that time, and he returned hours later after a drinking session with his friend. Mohammad Zam reportedly accused Ramona of having gotten close to a colleague and even shouted expletives at her, and it caused Ramona to cry. The commotion awakened Ramona's nephew, and according to the teenager, he witnessed Mohammad Zam slapping and punching Ramona, who was sitting near to him, and he saw Mohammad Zam grabbing an alarm clock (weighing 200g) and slammed it onto Ramona's face, causing Ramona to bleed and she continued to plead to her husband, who continued punching her. Afterwards, Mohammad Zam picked up a floor fan (weighing 8.5 kg) with both hands and threw it onto his wife’s face while she was still sitting on the floor. Ramona managed to escape the bedroom thereafter and hid inside the kitchen toilet, but Mohammad Zam broke the door and entered the bathroom, dragging his wife out and resumed punching and slapping her head and face while spewing vulgarities at her. All the while, Ramona never resisted and she continued to plead to her husband to stop, but Mohammad Zam persisted in the assault.
Ramona managed to run out of the bedroom into the living room and sat down on a sofa, but Mohammad Zam pursued her and grabbed onto her neck, and this time round, he picked up an ironing board weighing about 4.5 kg, and smashed it onto her head, before he forcibly dragged her back into the bedroom. By then, Ramona was motionless and during the whole sequence of events, Ramona's nephew was witnessing every minute of the cruel and violent attack on his aunt, and Mohammad Zam's brother left the flat in the middle of the assault. Both Mohammad Zam's brother and Ramona's nephew did not intervene due to Mohammad Zam warning the both of them to not intervene whenever he and his wife had any disputes, and the nephew was also afraid of Mohammad Zam and frightened at the violence that happened in front of him. Later, Mohammad Zam called the teenager to come out and bring Ramona to bed, and the nephew found his aunt's face covered in blood and she looked weak, and she did not respond to his attempts to wake her up. Throughout this, Mohammad Zam only stood by and watched. The attack in total lasted for about 40 minutes.
By then, the neighbours were alerted to the commotion happening inside Mohammad Zam's flat, and one of them called the police. This eventually led to Mohammad Zam's arrest for battering his wife, who would ultimately die two days later from the injuries caused by her husband.
Trial of Mohammad Zam Abdul Rashid Plea of guilt and psychiatric evidence
On 17 July 2006, 45-year-old Mohammad Zam Abdul Rashid officially stood trial at the High Court for one count of manslaughter, and his nephew, whose identity remained a secret due to his age, was expected to be the prosecution's key witness during the trial. Mohammad Zam was represented by Andy Yeo, Lim Dao Kai and Jesslyn Chia, while the prosecution consisted of Imran Abdul Hamid and Muhamad Imaduddien. The trial was presided over by Justice Tay Yong Kwang. Mohammad Zam pleaded guilty to the manslaughter charge on the first day of his trial, and therefore, he was convicted as charged, and the sentencing trial of Mohammad Zam was scheduled to take place on 18 August 2006, although this was postponed to 12 September 2006.