The motive behind Daryati killing her employer was because she wanted to get back her passport to return to Indonesia, as she was feeling homesick and missed her lesbian lover, who was working as a maid in Hong Kong.

[5] On the night of 7 June 2016, at around 8 pm, in a private estate neighbourhood at Telok Kurau, a married elderly couple living in one of the three-story semi-detached houses was attacked by one of their two Indonesian maids, with the wife being stabbed to death and the husband seriously injured.

He managed to disarm her but when he went to check on his wife (who was lying dead on the bathroom floor), Daryati picked up the knife and stabbed him on the neck a second time.

Due to her pressing needs to pay for her sister's schooling fees and her father's treatment, Daryati had no choice but to work as a maid in another country.

Daryati was not close to the other maid Don Hayati despite befriending her, as she was hired by the wife of one of the couple's sons, and assigned to other work.

Daryati told Don Hayati about her plan and roped her in to help themselves to retrieve their passports and steal the money.

(translated from Bahasa Indonesia to English)[21] In another diary entry dated 2 June 2016, Daryati drew a map to illustrate the layout of the house, to facilitate her plan to take the money and passport before escaping.

She first asked Don Hayati to distract Ong and bring him downstairs, and also to act as lookout for her while she went upstairs to threaten Seow.

After retrieving her knives from their respective hiding places, Daryati brought Seow into the room, under the pretext of passing her the clothes she ironed.

Underneath the clothes, Daryati brandished the long knife she hid and used it to threaten Seow, demanding her to return her passport.

[20] Daryati became at least the sixth maid to be charged with murder in Singapore in the last three years, where Singapore witnessed certain high-profile cases of maids killing their employer or the employer's family member, including Dewi Sukowati who was jailed 18 years for the killing of Nancy Gan Wan Geok (ex-wife of Hilton Cheong-Leen).

[30][31] The prosecution based their case on Daryati's police statements, in which she confessed to her premeditation and her involvement in the crime, and the events of that night.

They also referred to Daryati's diary entry dated 12 May, in which she wrote that she was prepared to even kill Seow Kim Choo in the course of taking her passport back, to describe that Daryati had clearly intended to cause the death of Seow in furtherance of her plan, and he pointed out that these chilling words amounted to an ex-ante (meaning "before the event" in Latin) confession of the "brutal and cold-blooded" murder she had planned and executed on that fateful night of 7 June 2016.

The presence of a male photographer taking photos of her breast and injuries also caused distress to Daryati, adding to her emotional woes and tendency to make statements that cannot be admitted.

On 21 September 2020, the date when Daryati was scheduled to submit her mitigation plea before sentencing, Daryati's lawyer Mohamed Muzammil Mohamed submitted to the trial court that Daryati wished to withdraw her plea of guilt for the reduced murder charge, as she wanted to put up a defence of diminished responsibility to seek a further reduction of her charge to one of culpable homicide not amounting to murder (or manslaughter), in the hope of avoiding life imprisonment.

She revealed to the court her traumatic experiences of being raped and abused by her brother, and stated that she suffered from nightmares as a result of the continual sexual assaults since her teenage years.

[38][39] The defence's psychiatrist, Dr Tommy Tan, also supported her defence of diminished responsibility by submitting a medical report, in which he diagnosed Daryati with persistent depressive disorder, based on her alleged symptoms since her adolescence and the interviews with Daryati's mother, sister and Don Hayati.

[16] Dr Sarkar also took the stand in February 2021 to tell the court that although Daryati felt sad, anxious, frustrated and homesick shortly after arriving in Singapore, she did not suffer from an abnormality of the mind.

[41] Explaining why she did not accept the defence of diminished responsibility, Justice Thean stated that the psychiatric report by Dr Tommy Tan was mostly based on Daryati's self-reported symptoms and there were no independent facts to corroborate them.

[40] Among the factors that made Justice Thean decide not to sentence Daryati to death, the judge took into consideration Daryati's young age of 21 or 23 at the time of the murder, her lack of exposure to the outside world other than the protective environments of her village and previous workplaces in Indonesia, and her emotional and psychological trauma of sexual assaults and violence perpetrated by her brother.

The trial judge also accepted that Daryati formulated the murder plot due to her desperation to return home and homesickness, and that she reluctantly made the difficult decision to come to Singapore out of filial duty for her ailing parents and the family's needs to resolve their financial poverty.

[44] These above circumstances mitigated the gruesome nature of the crime to the extent that there were sufficient grounds to persuade Justice Thean to spare Daryati from the gallows due to her low behavioural exhibition of viciousness and disregard for human life.

In her own words, Justice Thean quoted as she passed the life sentence on Daryati: The specific nature of the incident did not reflect a cold and calculated killing, but rather, intense panic and distress in executing her plan to return home.

Justice Phang, who delivered the verdict, stated there was clear evidence that Daryati did not experience any functional impairment during her time in Indonesia or in Singapore.

They found that Daryati stabbed Seow out of anger, which was not perpetuated by the combination of factors like her alleged disorders and the trauma of her brother's sexual assaults.

Daryati was allowed to make an overseas phone call to inform her family of the verdict before she was taken back to Changi Women's Prison,[55] where she is currently incarcerated, serving her life term since 9 July 2016.

Although Daryati's life sentence meant a term of imprisonment for the duration of her remaining lifespan, it still carries a possibility of release by parole after a minimum of twenty years in jail on account of her overall conduct in prison.

Daryati's case was cited as a similar example to Surajsrikan's case, in which Daryati was given a life sentence on account that her crime was not a cold and calculated killing, but a product of her depressed emotions, desperation to return home and homesickness, as well as her trauma of rape, all taken into account during sentencing.