An inmate serving a 17-year sentence for murder committed the act a second time when his wife visited him in prison in south-central Vietnam earlier this week.

Nguyen Thi Hien, 41, was pronounced dead after being repeatedly stabbed by her husband, Nhu Van Duc, a current inmate at the Z30D prison in Binh Thuan Province on Monday, according to a police statement released on Wednesday.

After killing his wife, Duc stabbed himself in the neck, chest, and belly in an apparent suicide attempt before police were able to stop the inmate and rush him to the hospital.

According to police, Hien and her two children came to the Z30D prison to see Duc in the early morning on July 31.

As Duc grew suspicious that his wife was having an affair with another man while he is in prison, he asked the children to go to the canteen and buy drinks so he could have some private time with Hien.

The couple went into a ‘happy room’ – a private room which inmates with good behavior are permitted to use for conjugal visits – where he grabbed a knife the wife brought for peeling fruit and stabbed the woman multiple times.

Hien died on the spot from extreme blood loss.

Duc was in the middle of his suicide attempt when the children returned and called on officers to restrain him.

The inmate is being treated at Binh Thuan General Hospital.

Duc was handed his 17-year jail term in 2014 for fatally stabbing a man who refused an invitation to drink with him.

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