Cold Blooded Murders (2 page)

In Washington, President Kennedy’s
two-day-old son died in hospital. Monks in Vietnam burnt themselves to death.
In Britain, the Great Train Robbery of more than £2.5 million thrilled the
world. In Kuala Lumpur, capital of Malaysia (connected to Singapore by a
mile-long causeway), a Member of Parliament accused the Minister of Education,
Abdul Rahim bin Haji Talib, of corruption. “Say that outside,” demanded the
Minister. Obligingly, the Member did. The Minister took him to Court, and lost.

Lord Nuffield died, and ended an era. There
was a drought in Singapore, where 71 secret society gangsters were charged with
murder during a. riot at an open prison on a nearby isle, Pulau Senang, the
previous month. Eighteen were later hanged.

During much of August 1963, Singapore was
preparing for Malaysia Day, the last day of the month when the creation of
Malaysia would be celebrated. Indonesia, just across the waters, was already
objecting, and Tunku Abdul Rahman, then Malaya’s Prime Minister, had flown to
Manila to talk to President Sukarno and President Macapagal. Agreement was
reached that the United Nations be asked to satisfy themselves (which they did)
that the Borneo states of Sabah and Sarawak in fact wanted to become part of
Malaysia. At these talks Sukarno described the Tunku as ‘a great statesman’,
and Macapagal ‘a great leader of Asia’. For his part, the Tunku was prepared to
admit that Sukarno and Macapagal were both ‘dynamic leaders who have fought
colonialism and imperialism’. Within days the agreement completely collapsed.
After abandoning the United Nations, Sukarno spent much of the following three
years trying to smash Malaysia.

On Sunday, 25 August 1963, 100,000 people
assembled on the grassy padang in front of Singapore’s City Hall, next to the
Courts, to demand that Japan pay SGD$50 million as a gesture of atonement for
their war atrocities to civilians during the occupation. During that month of
August feelings were running high for many reasons. Political tension was
apparent. Communist elements were trying to exploit every issue they thought
could be distorted to embarrass the government: they did all they could to
frighten, confuse and threaten the people over Singapore’s impending merger
with Malaysia.

***

Against this excited and troubled
background, a news item in
The
Straits Times
headed ‘Barmaid out diving with
boyfriend disappears’ aroused no more than casual interest. Nobody knew then
that nearly two years later, this Tuesday afternoon swimming tragedy was to
form the substance of one of the most remarkable murder trials ever heard in
the Far East.
The Straits Times
report, obtained from the police, read as follows;

A barmaid, Cheok Cheng Kid,
22, went skin-diving with her boyfriend off Pulau Dua at 2:30 pm yesterday.
Three hours later she vanished in the sea. Until late today Marine Police
launches were searching the sea off the island but found no trace of Cheok’s
body. Cheok had hired a motor sampan with Sunny Ang, 24, part-time law student,
at Jardine Steps yesterday afternoon. About 3:00 pm they reached Pulau Dua near
St John’s Island. They fitted on their goggles, mouthpiece, flippers and
compressed air cylinders and dived from the sampan in turns in search of coral.
After several dives they took off their gear and rested for a little while.
They then decided to start diving again. While Mr Ang was fitting on his gear,
Cheok plunged into the water. Mr Ang found a break in his breathing apparatus
and asked the boatman to help him repair it. When he failed to repair the leak
he signalled Cheok to surface. He tugged at her lifeline several times until it
snapped before he gave up and rushed to nearby St John’s Island to report to
the Marine Police. The police, helped by five islanders, rushed to the scene
and dived several times in search of Cheok, but found no traces of her. Cheok
lived at Tanglin Halt and worked in a bar in North Bridge Road. Mr Ang told the
police that he had been going steady with her for the past six months. Their
favourite hobby was skin-diving and they had gone to Pulau Dua several times
before.

Neither the police, nor
The Straits Times
, were then to know that this report was inaccurate in several
instances. ‘They’ did not fit on their goggles, etc. Only Cheok fitted on
diving gear. ‘They’ did not dive from the sampan in turns. Only Cheok dived.
And she dived twice. She was never seen again. Ang did not get even his feet
wet that day. He did not dive in search of her (though one of the Malays who
did was 62 years old), when Cheok did not surface. Cheok no longer worked as a
barmaid. Ang had not been going steady with her for six months. He had only
known her three months. They had never before been skin-diving together at
Pulau Dua, a notoriously dangerous area for swimmers. Not until the trial was
the importance of these discrepancies to be revealed. According to the
prosecution, this was the story of ‘the accident’, which Ang had carefully
concocted and thought would be believed. It might have been, and Ang might
today be a free man, had he not been greedy.

When Ang first made his report, the police
did not know that three hours before Jenny Cheok got in the sampan which took
her to her death, Ang had reinsured her life for five days (the previous 14
days’ policy having expired the previous day), for $150,000. When Jenny, a
penniless barmaid, made her fatal dive she was covered by nearlv half a million
dollars’ worth of insurance, all of which Jenny had willed to Ang’s mother. Ang
had, in fact, tried to get $900,000 worth of cover, but failed. Within 24 hours
of Jenny’s disappearance, Ang was claiming the half-million dollars from three
different insurance companies. The letters were identical: Jenny had met with a
tragic accident while scuba-diving off one of the islands south of Singapore at
about 5:00
pm
on 27 August 1963.
The letters went on: ‘She is presumed to have either drowned or been attacked
by a shark. Her body is yet to be found.’

In due course, the police were to find
evidence indicating that Ang, in July, had been thinking about involving Jenny
in an aeroplane ‘accident’. Formerly a member of the Singapore Flying Club, Ang
in 1961 held a pilot’s licence. He made inquiries about flying risks, saying
that Jenny intended joining the club as a student pilot (he said she was the
owner of a poultry farm), and also about personal accident risks. Jenny was
eventually insured for $200,000 and Ang paid the premiums and collected the
policies. That same day, Sunny Ang went to another insurance company and made
inquiries which ended up a few days later in Jenny being insured for another
$150,000. He paid the premium. Three weeks before she disappeared in the sea
off Pulau Dua, Ang took Jenny to an old and reputable firm of lawyers so that
she could make her will. Jenny left everything, her entire estate, which was
worthless, and her expectations of nearly half a million dollars once she was
dead, to Madam Yeo Bee Neo, whom she had never met. Madam Yeo Bee Neo is Sunny
Ang’s mother.

Ang apparently abandoned the aeroplane
‘accident’ idea after getting his girlfriend interested in scuba-diving. This
followed his unsuccessful night-time attempt to kill her in a motor ‘accident’.
Ang was a skilled driver. He competed in the 1961 Singapore Grand Prix, and had
put up a credible performance. On 13 August, he drove Jenny 300 miles to Kuala
Lumpur, on the way, Jenny was told, to the Cameron Highlands for a holiday
which was to last between a week and a fortnight. Half-way to Kuala Lumpur they
stopped for breakfast, which gave both of them stomach ache. They decided to
stay in Kuala Lumpur for a couple of days to recover before going on. During
the night, or at least some time before the following morning, they apparently
abandoned their plans for a holiday, and decided to return to Singapore. But first
Sunny Ang went out and bought a 14-day accident policy for Jenny and himself.
His was for $30,000. Hers was for $100,000. He paid the premium.

Ang at his trial said Jenny insisted upon
him taking out the policy because of his reckless driving on the way up. Only
two people knew the truth about what happened that night on the way back. Ang’s
story was that on turning a right-hand corner on a dark road he saw a dog lying
on the road. He sounded his horn and braked simultaneously. He said he braked
very hard. As a result Jenny’s head struck the windscreen, and frosted it. Ang
said he veered to the left and hit the earth embankment on the side of the
road, the same side of the car where Jenny was sitting.

Jenny had a swelling on her forehead,
bruises on the body, and a cut on her lower lip. The car was very badly
damaged, mostly on the passenger’s side. It had to be towed away. Ang told the
judge he was probably doing 50 mph when he crashed into the earth wall. They
returned the rest of the way to Singapore by train. They arrived at 7:00
am
in the morning. Ang sent her home by
taxi. He gave her a dollar to see a doctor. At his trial, Ang denied Cheok was
naïve. He agreed she was simple. He also agreed that no doctor in Singapore
would treat a patient for a dollar. He told the Court that he loved Jenny and
planned to marry her.

Ang may have planned to kill her the day he
met her, in the Odeon Bar, one evening at the end of May, or beginning of July
1963. He may have gone to the bar where she worked, deliberately searching for
a suitable victim. He was a bankrupt. He needed money urgently. There is no
evidence to substantiate this theory, but it is likely because less than three
weeks after Ang had met Jenny he attempted to take out an accident policy on
her life worth $200,000.

Suspicions aroused, the insurance company
sent out an investigator. Jenny told the insurance man who called upon her that
she knew nothing about an insurance policy. But she could remember Ang giving
her a paper to sign. In view of this the insurance company decided not to go on
with the policy. Ang promptly tried another company which also refused to
insure Jenny, the managing director, after conversation with the other company,
coming to the conclusion that the application was suspicious and fraudulent.
Ang waited a few days before going to the third company. He told this company
that Jenny was the proprietress of a chicken farm. With them he insured Jenny’s
life for $150,000.

Ten months after Jenny’s disappearance,
Sunny Ang was still trying to get the money. He knew the police were making
inquiries, but in desperation he telephoned the company. He told them that if
they were willing to give him two-thirds of the claim, he would be prepared to
sign an affidavit admitting that Jenny had never in fact owned a poultry farm.
The company man on the telephone asked Ang where Jenny was. Ang replied,
briefly, “At the bottom of the sea!”

With Jenny still alive after the road
accident, Ang hurried with his preparations to murder her with the scuba-diving
accident. Ang was forced to hurry: all the policies were short-term. He could
not afford to keep renewing them. Time was fast running out: days counted. On
the morning of 27 August he renewed one of Jenny’s insurances which had expired
the previous day, for a further five days, and then took her out to sea, to her
death. Part of the equipment Jenny wore when she dived to her doom was a
flipper with a heel-strap partly severed by a sharp knife.

More than 16 months elapsed before the
police charged Ang with murder. He was arrested on 21 December 1964. He
appeared before a magistrate the following day. On the charge sheet, Cheok was
described as Jenny Cheok Cheng Kid, aged 22, a divorcee and mother of two. No
plea was entered. Ang was remanded in custody.

Six
days later Ang again appeared
in court and was given a
discharge not amounting to an acquittal by the magistrate, Mr Sachi Saurajen.
Ang’s counsel, Mr Punch Coomaraswamy, objected to Ang being kept in remand
while the prosecution was unable to fix a date for the preliminary inquiry, and
successfully applied for Ang’s discharge. Counsel said that the alleged offence
was committed 16 months ago, and if the prosecution was still not ready with
the case, Ang should be let free. Senior Inspector T. S. Zain told the Court he
had received no instructions to fix a date for the preliminary inquiry.

About an hour later Ang was re-arrested,
and, the following morning, charged again with the same offence before the same
magistrate, Mr Sachi Saurajen. Mr Punch Coomaraswamy again raised objections to
the prosecution’s application for a week’s adjournment. He asked the Court to
fix a date for the preliminary inquiry. Otherwise his client, he argued, should
be released on bail. Senior Inspector T. S. Zain regretted he had no
instructions to fix a date for the inquiry, only to ask for a week’s
adjournment.

‘In the interests of justice’, the
magistrate adjourned the Court until after lunch in order that the Inspector
could contact his superiors. When the Court resumed, the deputy public
prosecutor, Mr K. S. Rajah, hastily summoned, explained that the prosecution
asked for a week’s adjournment because of ‘certain circumstances’. He admitted
it was true that the alleged offence had been committed 16 months ago, but Ang,
he pointed out, had only been arrested on 21 December, the day before he
appeared in Court. Mr Rajah added that the prosecution wanted to ‘tread
warily’. The alleged offence he said was not a trivial one. Twenty-live
witnesses would be called, and ‘further evidence might come to light’.