Cold Blooded Murders (5 page)

Kong did not in fact have an opportunity to
carry out Geddes’ instructions to cancel the two policies, for, following Lo’s
interview, Jenny wrote to the company expressing her wish to withdraw the
policies ‘for personal reasons’, and asking for the return of the premium which
had already been paid on one of them. Curiously, the letter was dated 28 July,
the day before Geddes instructed Sidney Kong to cancel the policies. The
company sent a cheque for $335.80 made out in favour of Jenny. That cheque was
paid into the account of Low Bock Seng, one of Ang’s creditors. Low is a
poultry-feed dealer.

About this time, certainly after the
cancellation of the Great Eastern Life Assurance Company’s policies, the
Prudential Assurance Company received an application from a young girl for
$100,000, for a policy on her life with accident coverage. This application was
referred to the branch manager, Blyth. He recalled a luncheon conversation with
Geddes during which Geddes had told him about his company’s recent experience.
Blyth checked with Geddes and discovered the applicant was in fact Jenny. Blyth
promptly rejected the application.

On or about 26 July, Jenny gave up her job
as a waitress at the Odeon Bar. From then until her disappearance almost a
month later, Jenny was unemployed. On 27 July, one day before Jenny wrote to
the Great Eastern to withdraw her two policies, she went with Ang to Edward
Lumley and Sons, in Raffles Place. Lumley’s were brokers to Lloyds, the London
underwriters. Jenny, it must be remembered was now unemployed. With Ang she
inquired about personal accident policies. Ang told the claims manager, Seow
Chong Pin, that Jenny wanted an insurance cover for flying risks for a sum
between $150,000 and $200,000. The manager referred Ang and Jenny to Michael
Rutherford, the managing director. With Rutherford, Ang negotiated on behalf of
Jenny, an accident policy for $100,000, and a flying risks policy for $50,000,
making a total of $150,000. Ang told Lumley’s that Jenny intended to take up
flying at the Royal Singapore Flying Club. Ang said that Jenny had inherited a
chicken farm from her father, and, because she was the eldest in the family,
she wanted to provide for her death duties.

All this, of course, was completely untrue.
Jenny was unemployed. What was Ang’s purpose in telling Lumley’s all these
lies? Sunny Ang did all the negotiations. Jenny remained silent. Ang filled up
the forms and handed them to Jenny to sign. The premium on this particular
policy was $518. Ang paid it. Jenny’s occupation was now changed to that of a
poultry-farm proprietress, and the beneficiary was shown as Jenny’s estate. The
next day Ang returned alone to collect the policy. That was on 29 July. Jenny
did not have many more days to live. On 30 July, Sunny Ang again called at
Lumley’s. He was alone. He said he wanted another $100,000 accident coverage
for Jenny. After negotiations this was reduced to $50,000, subject to the
approval of Lloyds of London. The next day, Ang telephoned Lumley’s. He was
told that Lloyds had approved. Later the same day he went to Lumley’s, paid a
premium of $100.50 and collected the policy.

Sunny Ang had been busy on 30 July. In
addition to calling on Lumley’s to discuss the extra accident coverage on
Jenny, he also went to the American International Underwriters. He took away
some forms. The next day he brought back one of the forms applying for a
$10,000 coverage on himself for a period of 21 days with effect from 4 August
1963. A policy was accordingly issued to him. Twenty-four hours later Ang came
back with a travel accident insurance form, filled in by him and signed by
Jenny, for $150,000. This policy was for 14 days to take effect from 12 August,
beginning at 7:00
am
. Time for
Jenny was fast running out. Ang paid the $81.30 premium. The beneficiary under
this policy was shown as Jenny’s estate.

“You will have noted,” crown counsel told
the jury, “that the beneficiary under the various accident insurance policies
was now given as Jenny’s estate, not Madam Yeo Bee Neo. I suggest this change
was due in no small measure to the fact that the Great Eastern had previously
questioned Jenny about her relationship with this woman.” Mr Seow said evidence
could be produced to prove that if Madam Yeo’s name had been given in these
policies, they would in fact have been queried by the companies. Mr Seow
explained that the effect of putting the word ‘estate’ as beneficiary meant
that benefits would go to Jenny’s estate. If she had died without making a
will, this estate would have been distributed among her next-of-kin. If this
had happened there would be little purpose in Sunny Ang paying out large sums
for Jenny’s policies. And so on 7 August 1963, he took Jenny to a solicitor, K.
T. Ooi, of Braddell Brothers, in Raffles Place, in order to make a will. This
was drawn up, and was interpreted and read back to Jenny in Ang’s presence.
Jenny left her entire estate to Madam Yeo Bee Neo, Sunny Ang’s mother. Jenny
hardly knew her. Who then was the real beneficiary? “You need not go far to
seek his true identity. We will show you,” declared counsel, “that the real
beneficiary was Sunny Ang. Why was all this subterfuge necessary? Ask
yourselves. Was it to throw suspicion away from himself from any accusation
that he was responsible for Jenny’s death if she suddenly died?”

After the will was signed, it was left with
Ooi. Two days later, Ang was back again at Braddell Brothers with a letter,
signed by Jenny, authorizing Ooi to give him the will.

On 13 August, three days after Jenny had
made her will, Sunny Ang borrowed Sidney Kong’s car, ostensibly to take Jenny
for a fortnight’s tour of Malaya. They arrived in Kuala Lumpur the same day.
They booked in at the Kowloon Hotel at about 6:30
pm
in the evening. The very next morning, Ang called at the
Insurance Company of North America, and obtained forms for a travel accident
insurance policy. He filled in the form for Jenny, and asked if he could also
sign it on her behalf. He was told he could not. So he took the form away and
brought it back a quarter of an hour later, signed by Jenny. It was an accident
insurance policy on Jenny’s life for $100,000. Ang told the insurance
representative, Tan Kim Heng, that he wanted the policy for two weeks, as Jenny
and he and a group of friends intended to go from Kuala Lumpur to the Cameron
Highlands. The policy was due to expire on 28 August 1963 at 11:00
am
. Ang paid the premium of $48.50.
Jenny’s estate was given as the beneficiary. Ang also took out a policy on
himself for $30,000 for a fortnight. The premium was $14.50.

About noon, almost immediately upon his
return to the hotel with the insurance policies, Sunny Ang and Jenny checked
out of the Kowloon Hotel, and, instead of heading northwards to continue their
tour of Malaya, they turned south and headed back for Singapore, but did not
actually leave Kuala Lumpur until about 5:00
pm
.
Within two hours it would be dark. Near Rembau, some 12.5 miles from Seremban,
driving along an unlit road, Ang braked hard to avoid a dog on the road. Jenny
was thrown forward against the windscreen. Ang veered left and crashed into an
embankment. The nearside of the car, the side where Jenny sat, was very badly
damaged. Jenny was bruised on her body and face. “From the damage to the car,
and from her injuries, it would appear that Jenny had a close brush with death.
Ang came out of the accident apparently unscathed. They returned to Singapore
by train. The car was left where it was, and was subsequently towed to the Lian
Seng Hackney Motor Workshop at Seremban.”

“This incident,” said counsel, “standing on
its own, probably would excite little or no comment. But looking at it against
the background of the facts which we now have, you may agree it assumes a
somewhat sinister significance. Was it a brazen attempt to kill Jenny under the
guise of a road accident?”

In Singapore, Ang gave Jenny $1 to see a
doctor about her injuries. Mr Seow said it was inconceivable that Ang should
think that the services of a doctor could be obtained for such a paltry sum.
Jenny’s sister Eileen had to give her $10, and Jenny’s mother, ‘who had been
cut off from her will without so much as a cent’, brought her to see a doctor
to have her injuries examined. “Is it not a strange commentary on Ang’s
attitude towards Jenny, a strange commentary on Ang’s so-called love for
Jenny?”

Mr Seow said that on 16 August, Ang and
Sidney Kong went to Seremban and saw the manager of the Lian Seng Hackney Motor
Company. The manager told them that the car would not be ready for the road for
a month. In fact it was not ready for two months.

On 25 August, Ang’s American International
personal travel accident policy for $10,000 lapsed. He did not renew it.
Jenny’s policy for $150,000 lapsed at 7:00
am
the next morning. On 27 August at 11:00
am
,
Ang called at the American Insurance office to extend Jenny’s lapsed policy for
another five days. Ang paid the premium of $48. Jenny’s policy with the
Insurance Company of North America was due to expire the next day. “If anything
was to happen, if any accident was to happen,” said Mr Seow, “I suggest in the
very nature of things it must happen within the next 24 hours.” The tragic
climax was not far off.

During the afternoon of 26 August, Ang
brought three air-tanks to the Singapore Oxygen Company’s place in Bukit Timah
Road, and left them there to be charged with air. Later in the day he returned
to collect them.

On 27 August, the fateful day, Sunny Ang
took Jenny scuba-diving off Pulau Dua. This was a Tuesday, a working day. Pulau
Dua are two little islands separated by a straits, about 700 feet apart. The
straits varies in depth between 30–35 feet. The islands are about four miles
from Jardine Steps in Singapore Harbour, and they are among the southernmost
islands of the Southern Islands, beyond which stretches the open sea, with
Indonesia in the distance.

Mr Seow quoted Captain Vernon Bailey, of the
Singapore Marine Department as saying that the waters around the Sisters
Islands were extremely hazardous. They were dangerous because of the remarkable
eddies and swirls which occur there, and the speed of the current around the
islands varies with the state of the tides from half a knot to some four knots.

Ang, that Tuesday afternoon, hired a boat
from Jardine Steps and directed the boatman, Yusuf bin Ahmad, to go to Pulau
Dua. They arrived there about 3:30
pm
,
about three minutes before high tide. Ang told the boatman to drop anchor at a
spot in the straits. Ang then dropped what is known as a ‘shot’ rope, to which
was attached a piece of weight, into the sea, and told Jenny to go down first.

“I think,” said counsel, “it is necessary at
this stage for me to say something about Jenny’s scuba-diving prowess. The word
‘scuba’ stands for ‘self-contained underwater breathing apparatus’. This
consists of a tank into which air is compressed under very high pressure, and a
breathing assembly which consists of a demand valve regulator, a mouthpiece
with two tubes, one for inhaling air from the tank and the other for exhaling
used air into the water. The regulator controls the flow of air from the tank
as and when demanded by the diver. When not in demand the regulator shuts
itself off so that the air from the tank is not unnecessarily wasted.” Mr Seow
went into detail about how the tank is carried on the back of the diver by
means of harnesses which, in the interests of safety, have a quick release
buckle, or device. There were certain other accessories which completed the
scuba-diver’s equipment: the mask which enables the diver to see underwater;
the swim-fins or nippers, which give him speed and manoeuvrability; lastly, the
weight belt which is an important item of a scuba-diver’s equipment. The
average person is naturally buoyant, and therefore, to counteract this buoyancy
he has to wear a weight belt. The amount of weight varied according to the
natural buoyancy of the diver, but usually it was not more than five pounds.
The weight belt must have a quick release so that in an emergency the diver
could release it without difficulty. “We know that until Jenny met Sunny Ang
she could not swim. He taught her to swim, and to skin-dive with scuba equipment.
The prosecution, however, submits that in the very short time that Ang had
known Jenny she could not have acquired a sufficient knowledge of her scuba
equipment, nor could she have reached that degree of proficiency in
scuba-diving which made it safe for her to dive in such a place as the straits
between the Sisters Islands.”

Without emotion, counsel went on to describe
Jenny’s last hours alive. In the boat, he said, Jenny wore:

·
        
a one-piece, tri-coloured (black, white, orange
vertical stripes) bathing costume;

·
        
a pair of green Walter web-feet nippers;

·
        
a black Espadon face mask;

·
        
an improvised Scout belt with two weights tied
to it, weighing two and a half pounds each;

·
        
a sheath knife;

·
        
a small axe in a leather case, which also held
the knife, fixed to her Scout belt;

·
        
a Sealion 40 cubic feet tank, blue in colour, to
which was attached a Sealion breathing assembly.

After Jenny had fastened on her improvised
weight belt, Ang helped her to fasten the Sealion tank on her back, before she
jumped into the sea. Ang then gave the boatman his transistor radio, ‘with
which to divert himself’, while Sunny attended to the other scuba equipment in
the boat. Eight to 10 minutes later, Jenny surfaced, and Sunny Ang assisted her
into the boat. Jenny and Sunny chatted for a while, and then Jenny went down
again. But this time, before she jumped, Sunny Ang changed her air-tank. Why?
Was it really because it had no more air?