SINGAPORE, Dec 3 — The 38-year-old director of City Funeral Singapore was charged in court today over the death of her ex-boyfriend in May, during the circuit breaker period imposed to limit the spread of Covid-19.

Alverna Cher Sheue Pin faces a charge of culpable homicide not amounting to murder.

She is accused of causing the death of Wee Jun Xiang, 32, on May 16 at Deck 4B of the multi-storey car park at Block 145A Bedok Reservoir Road between 1.44pm and 5.15pm.

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Court documents did not provide more details of the incident.

The police said yesterday that they arrested Cher after being alerted to a case of unnatural death then.

Local Chinese-language media previously reported that Wee, a composer also known as Sean, abruptly died of a heart attack that day, two months after releasing a song in Mandarin titled You Are Gone

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His family said then that he was working from home due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Cher is a single mother with two daughters aged 13 and six, according to a post on blogging platform Dayre published four days before Wee’s death.

In the post, Cher talked about her divorce from the older girl’s father and later breaking up with the younger girl’s father, whom Cher said was sentenced to jail shortly after she gave birth. 

She also spoke about taking over City Funeral Singapore from him one month after it was founded in 2015.

Her company was also involved in the funeral of Aloysius Pang, the Mediacorp actor who died during a Singapore Armed Forces military exercise in New Zealand almost two years ago.

She began running a recruitment business in 2007 but after four years, it was suspended for a five-year period. She then worked at MindChamps as an education coach.

On Thursday, she appeared in court via video link and asked to make three phone calls — one to her family, one to a friend to pass some money to her daughters, and one to another friend to find a lawyer for her.

“I’m a single mother and the sole breadwinner, so I really need to pass money to my daughters and parents,” Cher said, adding that her mother is a stroke patient.

While a police prosecutor objected as investigations are still in process, District Judge Brenda Tan said that the investigation officer will help to “notify the family and see to necessary arrangements”.

Cher will be remanded for one week and will return to court on December 10.

If convicted of culpable homicide, she could be jailed for up to life, or jailed for up to 20 years and fined.

The offence carries the possibility of caning but women cannot be caned by law. — TODAY