A 36-YEAR-OLD man in Kratie province this week killed his ex-wife by chopping her in the head with an axe three times before hanging himself, leaving their two children parentless, government officials said yesterday.

Chan Heang, the deputy police chief in Prek Prasab district’s Prek Presab commune, where the crime occurred on Tuesday night, said the murder was witnessed by the children as well as the man’s former mother-in-law. The couple had divorced less than a month before.

After killing his ex-wife, the man hanged himself below the house.

“The police found it difficult to help them because this family lives far from others, and the people in the village wanted to help them, but they arrived too late,” Chan Heang said.

Thim Narin, Kratie provincial coordinator for Adhoc, said she was told by the victim’s mother that the man wanted to reconcile, but that the victim did not want to get back together with him.

“I think the husband felt it was hopeless that they would get back together, and that’s why he decided to kill his ex-wife and himself,” Thim Narin said.

She said the case was the first murder-suicide stemming from a domestic dispute recorded in the province this year, and that seven have been recorded dating back to 2004.