By Chong Shin Yen

Ms Patricia Goh's maid had been helping her prepare dinner on Monday night when she suddenly dropped a bombshell.

Ms Uum Umiroh, 24, told Ms Goh, 49, that the family's previous maid had given birth to a baby, then allegedly killed it and buried it in the garden of their house.

Ms Goh, who lives in a two-storey semi-detached house on Hillside Drive, off Upper Serangoon Road, made a police report that night.

The baby had allegedly been born prematurely.

BONES RECOVERED

On Tuesday, at about 9am, the police, accompanied by sniffer dogs, dug up the garden and recovered some small bones.

They are being analysed by the Health Science Authority to determine if they are human bones.

Ms Goh said her maid, whom she calls Umi, had told her about the buried baby out of the blue.

She told The New Paper: 'We were cooking in the kitchen when Umi suddenly blurted out 'Kirun tanam baby sini' (Kirun buried baby here in Malay).'

Kirun (not her real name), 30, was Ms Goh's previous Indonesian maid.

Ms Goh, who understands Malay, said: 'When I heard it, a chill ran through me. I almost freaked out. It was really eerie.'

She immediately stopped her chores and asked Ms Umi to tell her in detail what she meant.

It turned out that Ms Umi had heard from their mutual friends, who also work as maids here, that Kirun had given birth in the toilet of Ms Goh's house.

Kirun was allegedly about seven months pregnant at the time.

Ms Umi told The New Paper in Malay: 'Kirun had confessed to her friends that she had given birth to a baby girl secretly.

BURIED IN BACKYARD

'She said that she didn't know what to do with the baby, so she just bunuh (kill in Malay) her.

'Kirun later buried the baby in Ms Goh's backyard.'

Ms Goh said she was shocked to hear this.

'I did not like the idea of a corpse buried somewhere in my garden, so I called the police,' she said.

The police, together with four sniffer dogs, arrived at her house the next morning and spent three hours there.

Ms Goh added: 'I saw the police digging up something that was wrapped with a yellow batik cloth.

'It was buried about 15cm deep into the soil in my backyard.'

It was not known when Kirun had buried the baby.

Ms Goh said there had been no foul smell coming from the garden.

The family employed a new maid because Kirun's contract with them had ended.

Kirun went back to her hometown in Surabaya, Indonesia, on 22 Jun.

Ms Umi, who arrived at Ms Goh's house on 6 Jun, spent two weeks with Kirun before she returned home.

In that time, Kirun had told Ms Umi that she had at least two boyfriends in Singapore.

But Ms Goh had no idea if Kirun, who has a husband and two children in Indonesia, had hooked up with anyone while she was working here.

She said her younger brother had employed Kirun in 2006.

The siblings live with their elderly parents in the house.

Said Ms Goh: 'Kirun's main job was to take my 82-year-old mother to Ling Kwang Home for physiotherapy sessions twice a week.'

Ms Goh's mother is disabled after suffering a stroke about three years ago.

The home, a facility for the elderly, is in Serangoon Gardens.

Ms Goh said that her mother and Kirun would spend about seven hours at the home from 8.30am to 3pm.

She said: 'They would take a taxi there each time. I had no idea who she met or what she did while she was at the home.'

It was also at the home that Ms Umi heard from other maids about Kirun and her premature baby.

Ms Goh said that Kirun was given days off whenever she asked for them.

'We were not very strict with her. Sometimes she would ask to be off on a Sunday, but it's not every week that she had a day off.

'Other than being rude and talking back to me sometimes, she was all right at doing household chores. She would be grumpy, but would still complete her chores.'

Neither Ms Goh nor her family members had any idea that Kirun was pregnant.

'She was always wearing loose-fitting batik dresses or oversized T-shirts. I really couldn't tell if she had put on weight or was pregnant.'

But Ms Goh recalled that a few months ago, she saw Kirun boiling water with ginger to drink.

She said: 'At that time, I thought that she was nursing a cold. Thinking about it now, she could have just given birth then.'

The police said they are investigating the case.

This story was first published in The New Paper on July 25, 2008.