Pathip was sentenced to death in November 2010, after the High Court rejected his defences of grave and sudden provocation and diminished responsibility and therefore convicted him of murder.
[1] Pathip completed his N-levels and graduated from secondary school before he enrolled in the Institute of Technical Education (ITE) and studied for a diploma in electrical engineering.
Afterwards, Pathip served his mandatory two-year National Service as a fireman in the Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) before he was discharged in January 2007.
[1] In December 2007, through a mutual friend, Suresh, Pathip first met his girlfriend Jeevitha Panippan (also known as "Jeev" or "Ashley"), who was an 18-year-old kindergarten teacher studying for her O-levels as a private candidate.
At one point, in May 2008, Pathip even deferred his application to enroll into a part-time course in Petroleum and Chemical Process Technology at ITE College East and gave Jeevitha the money meant for his own school fee.
Often, they would reconcile each time it happened, and on many occasions, Pathip used a knife to threaten her and Jeevitha would apologize to him and seek forgiveness and the matter would come to a close.
According to Jeevitha's mother, she was satisfied with Pathip as a potential son-in-law after observing his "quiet and very courteous" character and sincerity.
After murdering Jeevitha, Pathip removed the gold chain he had gifted her from her neck and kissed her on the cheek, and he left the scene.
[15][16] Jeevitha's corpse was cremated at Mandai Crematorium after a short funeral, with friends and family members attending the wake.
[17] After he stabbed Jeevitha to death, Pathip immediately fled the country and went into hiding at Johor Bahru in neighboring Malaysia.
[18][19] On 10 July 2008, three days after the crime, 22-year-old Pathip Selvan Sugumaran was officially charged with murdering 18-year-old Jeevitha Panippan.
The knife was allegedly not meant to cause harm but to merely threaten her into seeking forgiveness, but this went awry with the change of circumstances.
[28] On 12 November 2010, a year after Pathip stood trial and having heard the case for 11 days, Justice Kan Ting Chiu delivered his verdict.
[32][33] In July 2012, while Pathip was still appealing against his conviction, the Singapore government announced that they would be introducing amendments in early 2013 to the death penalty laws in Singapore, mainly the introduction of life imprisonment as a minimum punishment for certain degrees of murder and for drug couriers who were convicted of capital drug trafficking.
Explaining their reasons to accept the defence of grave and sudden provocation, Justice Rajah pronounced on behalf of the judges that the verbal insults which Jeevitha cruelly uttered in cold blood at her boyfriend was reasonably provocative, as Pathip harboured a great amount of passionate feelings for Jeevitha and also planned to marry her regardless of her unfaithfulness, and these malicious words (coupled with Jeevitha's persistent behaviour of cheating on Pathip) might have, more than possible, caused Pathip to lose his self-control in the moment of anger and hence stabbed her to death.
The judges also agreed that with the principles laid by the 1998 precedent case of Kwan Cin Cheng, a Malaysian who was convicted of the manslaughter of his girlfriend in 1996 due to sudden and grave provocation, the provocation inflicted upon Pathip was indeed grave and sudden, if considered in the mental background of Pathip and in his position.
[37][38] Describing the killing of Jeevitha as "a tragic case of a young couple who had a bitter-sweet relationship that culminated in a homicide", the Court of Appeal concluded that "in the heat of the moment and in the context of the unfortunate couple’s overwhelming emotional turbulence", Pathip had killed Jeevitha under circumstances that fell short of murder as induced by grave and sudden provocation.
Pathip was instead convicted of a lesser charge of culpable homicide not amounting to murder, also known as manslaughter in Singaporean legal terms.
The punishment stipulated for manslaughter was either life imprisonment or alternatively, a fixed jail term of 20 years or less, with a possible fine or caning.
The prosecution, however, pointed out that Pathip had planned the meeting beforehand and even armed himself with a knife before the incident, and asked for a higher sentence due to the aggravating factors of his case.
With the possibility of parole for good behaviour, Pathip would be released in November 2021 after completing at least two-thirds of his jail term (equivalent to 13 years and four months).