SINGAPORE — An 82-year-old woman and her 54-year-old son have both been found dead in Little India, police said on Tuesday (July 9).

The man was found motionless at about 6.45am at the foot of Block 637 in Veerasamy Road, off Jalan Besar, and his mother was discovered motionless inside a flat in the same public housing block.

Both were pronounced dead by paramedics at the scene, police said.

Neighbours said the mother and son lived together in a flat on level 11 of the block, with no other occupants.

A next door neighbour, who wished to be known only as Mr Ong, 60, told TODAY that the sound of the mother’s crying — on an almost daily basis — concerned other neighbours.

He said: “When he goes down to buy lunch and dinner for his mum, if he takes quite a while, she will cry very loudly. My wife would go over to pacify her and tell her that we are calling her son. The other neighbours would go over also because of how loud her cries are.”

Mr Ong had been their neighbour for almost 30 years. When asked how often this happened, he said: “Almost every day.” He added: “The mother would always scold him and nag him. He was so pitiful.”

Mr Ong also said that the man would ask to borrow some money from neighbours.

He said: “He has no income and is not working. He tried to support his mother. When she went to the hospital he had no money to take care of her. He borrowed $50 or $100 from me a couple times. I always see that he never ate and didn’t have enough money to eat.”

Another neighbour Mr Mohamed Tayab, 50, self-employed, said that the son had tried borrowing money from him as well.

He said: “They had a lot of financial problems. The son would always ask me for money, like $50 or $100. I would never give because I always see him buying 4D (lottery tickets).”

Another neighbour on the same level, who wished to be known only as Mr Ng, 55, a taxi driver, reiterated that neighbours often found the mother crying loudly in her flat.

“There was once where I had just arrived home and I heard his mother crying very loudly. I could not understand a lot of what she said but I knew she was looking for her son. I would go down and look for him to tell him that he should return home to look after his mother,” he said.

Mr Ng said that when he saw the son two days ago, the latter looked out of sorts. 

He said: “I would often say hello whenever I saw him but when I saw him two days ago, he had a very strange look on his face and kept to himself.”

Police investigations are ongoing.