Brunei is a fairly safe country. The people are timid, crime rate is low. So, when Sajariah left her home town of Sumbawa for Brunei in January 2019 to work as a domestic helper, no one expected that she would come home in a casket, a victim of crime.

The crime scene was so bloody and gruesome. The murder bore the classic sign of a crime of passion, so epic as though something straight out of a true crime TV series. 

Her dead body was not found at a public place, not at a park, not by the roadside, not at a dark alley. Her body was found where she was murdered, the very house where she worked at STKRJ Kg Mumong. Why the picture of her bloody dead body made its way to social media is beyond me. It was a total disrespect to the deceased, her family and loved ones.

But, now that the graphic image is out in the open, it would, in some way, help Sajariah’s family get answers to her death. For one thing, the stab wounds on the neck and face definitely indicated that it was not a natural death. The pool of blood under her body showed that she was attacked right there indicating her employer’s house as the primary crime scene or the death scene. Most significantly, the multiple stab wounds and the blood bath indicated hatred or rage on the part of the attacker, throwing the excuse of “self-defense” or “burglary went wrong” out of the window. It was definitely something personal. 

Her employers, a Malay couple, have been arrested the same day of the murder. The case is still ongoing and if found guilty, they could face the death penalty. But, I have been disturbed by the many past murder cases where the defendants just convicted with culpable homicide meaning someone died, and the killers just got four to six years (wtf!!). Nobody got the right to take someone’s life, whether premeditated or not, whether they are insane or not, regardless how evil and deserving they thought the victim was, and to be handed down just 6 years jail sentence for murdering someone, there is no deterrent effect at all, in fact sending the wrong message to would-be killers to just go on and kill, you’ll be out in no time.