"Uncaring" dad gets death for killing 2-year-old son (Shah Alam, Malaysia)

Dad MURTHY MUTHU was found guilty of murdering his 2-year-old son in 2007 and has been sentenced to death.

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'Uncaring' dad gets death for killing son

Sat, Dec 18, 2010
New Straits Times

SHAH ALAM - An odd-job labourer was sentenced to death by the High Court here yesterday for killing his 2-year-old son more than three years ago. Murthy Muthu, 32, was found guilty of murdering M. Ruthren at their home in Jalan Sungai Pinang, Klang, at 4.15pm on Jan 20, 2007.

The father of seven did not show any emotion when High Court judge Datuk Mohtaruddin Baki passed sentence.

In his judgent, Mohtaruddin said the defence had failed to raise a reasonable doubt on the prosecution's case on several grounds.

He said Murthy, in his defence, claimed that Ruthren had a bout of epilepsy on the day of the incident but failed to send him to hospital for treatment.

Murthy had testified that he did not file a police report fearing that he would be sent to prison again, having just been released for an unspecified crime.

"If you claim to be a caring and responsible father, why were you sitting in the living room and smoking away while your son was having an epileptic seizure?

"That is not a sign of a caring father."

Mohtaruddin said the defence's case had only come about as an afterthought since the claim that Ruthren had suffered a seizure was never mentioned during the prosecution stage of the trial.

Although the cause of death was not fully ascertained because of the decomposed state of the body, the coroner did find the child's nose to be broken and his hips swollen as stated in the post-mortem report, the judge said.

"This corroborates with the testimony of Murthy's wife that her son was stepped on the head by Murthy as he laid in a drain outside the house.

"The accused has been proven to be a temperamental person based on the testimony of witnesses."

Twenty-one witnesses gave evidence at the trial.

Murthy was represented by K. Vikneswaran while deputy public prosecutor Rasidah Abu Bakar prosecuted.

Ruthren was dumped after he died and his badly decomposed body was found by fishermen off the Teluk Intan coast on Feb 1, 2007.