The Orchard Towers double murders was the case of two deaths occurring at Balmoral Park,
Singapore
Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borde ...
, before the victims' bodies were discovered at a carpark in
Orchard Towers
Orchard Towers is an 18-story office building in Singapore located on the corner of Claymore Road and Orchard Road. Construction was completed in 1975. The first five floors are a combination of bars and retail outlets with the remainder leased ...
, thus the title of the case. The victims were 46-year-old Kho Nai Guan (XÇš NaÄyuán 许乃元) and Kho's 29-year-old
Chinese
Chinese can refer to:
* Something related to China
* Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity
**''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation
** List of ethnic groups in China, people of va ...
girlfriend Lan Ya Ming (Lán YÇŽmÃng 兰雅明), and they were both murdered by Kho's
British
British may refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies.
** Britishness, the British identity and common culture
* British English, ...
employer Michael McCrea. McCrea was assisted by his girlfriend Audrey Ong Pei Ling (Wáng PeìlÃng 王佩玲) in disposing of the bodies before they both fled Singapore to
Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...
, where they were caught.
The outcome of the case was Ong and McCrea being extradited back to Singapore in 2002 and 2005 respectively, where they were charged with offences ranging from causing disappearance of evidence to culpable homicide not amounting to murder, and sentenced to lengthy jail terms of 12 and 24 years respectively for their roles in the murders. The Orchard Towers double murder case was known to be one of the most infamous murder cases that occurred in Singapore.
Aside from the case, this was not the only time when the Orchard Towers became associated with a murder case; another murder would arise from a fatal fight among a group of eight people at Orchard Towers 17 years later on 2 July 2019, when 31-year-old chemist
Satheesh Noel Gobidass
The 2019 Orchard Towers murder was a murder case where a group of men killed 31-year-old Satheesh Noel Gobidass, who sustained several knife wounds and died at Orchard Towers on 2 July 2019. The murder was not the first case that involved the ...
was killed by one of the members Tan Sen Yang.
Discovery of the victims at Orchard Towers
On 8 January 2002, a security guard named Mohammed Yaacob responded to a report relating to a silver
Daewoo Chairman
The chairperson, also chairman, chairwoman or chair, is the presiding officer of an organized group such as a board, committee, or deliberative assembly. The person holding the office, who is typically elected or appointed by members of the grou ...
parked on the seventh floor of the
Orchard Towers
Orchard Towers is an 18-story office building in Singapore located on the corner of Claymore Road and Orchard Road. Construction was completed in 1975. The first five floors are a combination of bars and retail outlets with the remainder leased ...
carpark, where it appeared abandoned given that it was sighted at the same spot for the past four days. As Mohammed approached the car, he detected a fetid odour coming from the car. Suspecting that something was wrong, Mohammed called the police.
Upon receiving Mohammed's police report, a team of police officers headed to the Orchard Towers car park where Mohammed found the car. The police then forced open the car and made a gruesome discovery of two decomposing corpses inside the vehicle. One of the corpses was found inside a huge wicker basket placed at the car's rear seat. The first corpse belonged to a 46-year-old
Singaporean
Singaporeans, or the Singaporean people, refers to citizens or people who identify with the sovereign island city-state of Singapore. Singapore is a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural and multi-lingual country. Singaporeans of Chinese, Malay, India ...
male named Kho Nai Guan. The other body was found in the boot of the car, wrapped in blankets and the head covered with plastic bags and neckties tightening the bags around the neck area. The other body was certified to be female, and her identity was Lan Ya Ming (alias Suzie Lan), a 29-year-old
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
-born immigrant and teacher who first came to
Singapore
Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borde ...
in October 2001 to apply for a teaching job. Lan, who was Kho's girlfriend, was married with two eight-year-old twin sons at the time of her death, while Kho himself was a father of three who was estranged from his wife.
Both Kho and Lan were certified to have died from strangulation and suffocation respectively, according to the forensic pathologist Dr Paul Chui. Lan's body was later reclaimed by her 32-year-old Chinese husband and
telecommunications
Telecommunication is the transmission of information by various types of technologies over wire, radio, optical, or other electromagnetic systems. It has its origin in the desire of humans for communication over a distance greater than that fe ...
worker Lin Jia Song ten months after her death, while Kho's family were able to recognise him from his Thai tattoos and reclaimed his body.
Lin said that before his wife was murdered, he often received weekly calls from Lan while she stayed in Singapore and the last time he heard her voice was on 29 December 2001, three days before her death. He stated she did not turn up at their family home in
Fujian
Fujian (; alternately romanized as Fukien or Hokkien) is a province on the southeastern coast of China. Fujian is bordered by Zhejiang to the north, Jiangxi to the west, Guangdong to the south, and the Taiwan Strait to the east. Its capi ...
for
Chinese New Year
Chinese New Year is the festival that celebrates the beginning of a New Year, new year on the traditional lunisolar calendar, lunisolar and solar Chinese calendar. In Sinophone, Chinese and other East Asian cultures, the festival is commonly r ...
as she promised and he could not contact her for three months before he received the
Singapore Police Force
The Singapore Police Force (SPF) is the national and principal law enforcement agency responsible for the prevention of crime and law enforcement in the Republic of Singapore. It is the country's lead agency against organised crime; human, wea ...
's notification that his wife possibly was the female deceased victim they found at Orchard Towers. In fact, the police could not establish Lan's identity immediately after they discovered her body and it took ten months before they finally identified her through her belongings and
DNA samples provided by Lin.
Police investigations yielded the last address of both Kho and Lan, which was located in an apartment at Balmoral Park, owned by a
British
British may refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies.
** Britishness, the British identity and common culture
* British English, ...
expatriate
An expatriate (often shortened to expat) is a person who resides outside their native country. In common usage, the term often refers to educated professionals, skilled workers, or artists taking positions outside their home country, either ...
and
financial adviser
A financial adviser or financial advisor is a professional who provides financial services to clients based on their financial situation. In many countries, financial advisors must complete specific training and be registered with a regulatory ...
named Michael McCrea, who hired Kho as his personal driver after being impressed by the latter's driving skills as a taxi driver. The $146,000 Daewoo car, where the bodies were found, was bought and gifted to Kho by McCrea himself. However, McCrea had already left for
London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
on 5 January 2002, three days prior to the discovery of the bodies. McCrea's 22-year-old Singaporean girlfriend, Audrey Ong Pei Ling, who lived with McCrea in the same apartment as Kho and Lan, had also left for London on the same day. The apartment was reportedly in complete disarray and looked as though something had happened.
Later, McCrea's acquaintances were brought into questioning. One of them, Gemma Louise Ramsbottom, a former secretary of McCrea, told police that when she arrived at the apartment on McCrea's request, she was shocked to see Kho lying dead in the living room and McCrea, who appeared injured, using a knife to threaten her to not reveal the gruesome finding, as well as forcing her to help him dispose of the bodies and the victims' belongings. Another man, Augustine Justin Cheo Yi Tang, also told police that McCrea and Ong sought his help to provide them acid to dissolve the bodies and cleaning fluid to clean up the flat. In both cases, Ramsbottom and Cheo received word from McCrea that he did not mean to kill Kho and Lan, as it was due to a fight that ended fatally.
As such, both Michael McCrea and Audrey Ong were placed on the police's wanted list for their alleged involvement in the deaths of Kho and Lan, which were classified as murder.
Interpol
The International Criminal Police Organization (ICPO; french: link=no, Organisation internationale de police criminelle), commonly known as Interpol ( , ), is an international organization that facilitates worldwide police cooperation and cri ...
also received and approved Singapore's request to set out an international fugitive notice for both McCrea and Ong. Five months later, the two were arrested by the local authorities in
Melbourne
Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...
,
Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...
, where they sought refuge from the home of McCrea's then estranged pregnant wife after spending some time hiding in London.
Michael McCrea
Michael McCrea, born in
Britain
Britain most often refers to:
* The United Kingdom, a sovereign state in Europe comprising the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland and many smaller islands
* Great Britain, the largest island in the United King ...
in 1958, was a school drop-out who did not complete his secondary school education and left school without an
O-level
The O-Level (Ordinary Level) is a subject-based qualification conferred as part of the General Certificate of Education. It was introduced in place of the School Certificate in 1951 as part of an educational reform alongside the more in-depth ...
exam certificate. He did, however, possess a talent in business, and he became publicly acknowledged in the media for his business savvy. McCrea was also recognised as "
Nottingham
Nottingham ( , East Midlands English, locally ) is a city status in the United Kingdom, city and Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority area in Nottinghamshire, East Midlands, England. It is located north-west of London, south-east ...
's Million Pound Man" in 1980 after he was able to earn a profit of
£1.2 million in nine months on behalf of a financial-services firm he was employed at. McCrea went to
South East Asia
Southeast Asia, also spelled South East Asia and South-East Asia, and also known as Southeastern Asia, South-eastern Asia or SEA, is the geographical south-eastern region of Asia, consisting of the regions that are situated south of mainland ...
in the 1990s, and worked as a financial adviser in Singapore, the same country where he first met and married his
Australian
Australian(s) may refer to:
Australia
* Australia, a country
* Australians, citizens of the Commonwealth of Australia
** European Australians
** Anglo-Celtic Australians, Australians descended principally from British colonists
** Aboriginal Au ...
wife Brunetta Stocco, with whom he had four children, including a son named Callum (aged two in 2003). Their marriage reportedly ended, according to Stocco, when he came to her house in Australia with Ong.
Under the alias Mike Townsend, McCrea wrote and published a book titled ''Expat Survival Kit'', which gave advice to his
expatriate
An expatriate (often shortened to expat) is a person who resides outside their native country. In common usage, the term often refers to educated professionals, skilled workers, or artists taking positions outside their home country, either ...
clients about financial strategies in business. He was reported to have violated financial regulations and fined for his misconduct in Singapore at one point. McCrea, who rented an apartment at Pinewood Gardens Condominium in Balmoral Park, was said to have a lifestyle of throwing noisy parties near the pool of the condominium, which often drew complaints and annoyance from his neighbours. McCrea's wife also left him to live in Australia due to her disliking her husband's lifestyle. McCrea also learned amateur boxing at one point in his lifetime. He became engaged in a romantic relationship with pub waitress Audrey Ong, whom he first met through a friend at a pub in June 2001 and later lived with him.
In 1998, McCrea first met Kho Nai Guan, a taxi driver whom he formed a close friendship with and later hired as his personal driver six months after they met. Kho was formerly an electronics business owner whose business went bankrupt after a few years of operation in 1989, before his employment at his brother's pet-food business and his failed venture to establish his own business in 1992. Kho was known to be a friendly and well-spoken individual to his friends and his excellent services as a taxi driver gave him commendation and awards in 1997. Kho moved into McCrea's home in 1999 after he became estranged from his wife, and he later lived together with his girlfriend Lan Ya Ming. Kho was also known to be philandering and often spent nights with foreign women and prostitutes. Still, it did not affect his brotherly relationship with McCrea, who often affectionately called him "Ah Guan" and paid him decently for his job.
The defendants' account
The following account below was what happened to Kho Nai Guan and Lan Ya Ming, according to Michael McCrea and Audrey Ong after their arrests and trials. According to the duo, it resulted from Kho allegedly calling Ong "jian huo", which was a Chinese derogatory term that means "slut" when translated to English, and this provoked McCrea in fighting and killing Kho in the process; Lan was later killed in the aftermath of the fight. Initially, McCrea claimed it was due to Kho stealing his cash to buy drugs, which sparked a fight between them both and ended with Kho's death.
It was after midnight on 2 January 2002 when McCrea gathered with Ong, Lan and Kho to drink champagne to celebrate the New Year's Day from the day before. During the session, Kho spat at Ong and called her a slut in Chinese. For this, McCrea was angered and confronted Kho. Kho, who got pushed against the wall and punched on the face, retaliated by breaking a vase on his employer's head, but it only led to McCrea kicking him, fracturing his ribs before he held him in an armlock to punch him repeatedly. During the fight, McCrea used too much strength and it led to fractures in the bones around the throat, leading to 46-year-old Kho Nai Guan to die from strangulation.
Lan tried to attack McCrea with a knife but she was knocked unconscious by McCrea, and brought into Kho's bedroom. It was at 4.30 am when McCrea realised Kho had died, after seeing that his body was cold and his legs turned purple. He and Ong tried to resuscitate Kho with CPR but their efforts were fruitless. McCrea spent the next two days frantically trying to cover up Kho's death by gathering Kho's belongings for disposal, and also enlisted the help of both Gemma Ramsbottom and Augustine Justin Cheo during this period. Lan Ya Ming, who was locked in Kho's bedroom and fed some water, chocolate and cranberry juice, was pressured into revealing the whereabouts of Kho's cash, including the $20,000 bonus McCrea paid to Kho a month prior.
On 4 January 2002, after stuffing Kho's body and belongings into the wicker basket, McCrea tied three plastic bags over the unconscious Lan's head, and tightened each layer of plastic bag around Lan's neck with his personal necktie. 29-year-old Lan Ya Ming, who was still alive at the time, later suffocated due to strangulation by the neck and died. It was mentioned that Lan struggled and convulsed as McCrea tightly wrapped her head with plastic bags. McCrea also wrapped up Lan's whole body with blankets and plastic strings before he and Ong placed the bodies of Lan and Kho into Kho's car and drove it to a carpark at Orchard Towers where they abandoned it. Afterwards, they left for London the next day after obtaining air tickets for their destination.
Court proceedings
Extradition and trial of Audrey Ong
After Audrey Ong and Michael McCrea were arrested in
Melbourne
Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...
,
Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...
, the Singaporean authorities were notified and they thus issued extradition orders for both McCrea and Ong to stand trial in Singapore.
Ong was the first to be extradited and arrived in Singapore on 10 November 2002. She pleaded guilty to two charges of causing evidence of a capital offence to disappear, and on 8 February 2003, Ong was sentenced to a total of 12 years' imprisonment, which consisted of two consecutive terms of six years, to which each term was applied to each charge. Despite Ong's lawyer Jeffrey Soh's plea for leniency on account of his client's voluntary surrender and willingness to testify against McCrea, District Judge Richard Magnus did not buy Ong's mitigation plea as he found her demonstrating an utter lack of remorse and having made no attempt to contact the authorities after the murders occurred. He also described her overall conduct as "sordid, macabre, callous, shocking, reprehensible and grossly offensive" in societal standing. Ong later declined to continue her appeal against her sentence despite filing it on 14 May 2003.
Extradition of Michael McCrea
However, even though he was arrested together with Ong and an extradition order from Singapore was issued for him, McCrea was not extradited and remained in a maximum-security Australian prison as it is against Australian law to extradite anyone to another jurisdiction if he or she could face the
death sentence
Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that ...
, especially since Australia completely
abolished capital punishment in 1985. Given that the charges McCrea was wanted for were capital murder, McCrea would be
sentenced to death under Singapore law if found guilty of murder. For this, the
Singapore government
The Government of Singapore is defined by the Constitution of Singapore to mean the executive branch of the state, which is made up of the president and the Cabinet. Although the president acts in their personal discretion in the exercise o ...
decided to make a bargain: they gave the
Australian government
The Australian Government, also known as the Commonwealth Government, is the national government of Australia, a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy. Like other Westminster-style systems of government, the Australian Government i ...
the assurance that McCrea would not be hanged even if he was convicted of murder. The assurance, according to experts, was possible to be fulfilled even if McCrea was found guilty and sentenced to death by the courts, as he would be entitled to appeal to the higher courts of Singapore to reduce his sentence, and further on, if the appeal fails, McCrea would still be given a chance to appeal to the
President of Singapore
The president of Singapore is the head of state of the Singapore, Republic of Singapore. The role of the president is to safeguard the Reserves of the Government of Singapore, reserves and the integrity of the Singapore Civil Service, public serv ...
for clemency, which will commute his death sentence to
life imprisonment
Life imprisonment is any sentence of imprisonment for a crime under which convicted people are to remain in prison for the rest of their natural lives or indefinitely until pardoned, paroled, or otherwise commuted to a fixed term. Crimes for ...
if successful. This assurance eventually allowed Australia to approve the extradition on 16 November 2002.
However, McCrea initiated a series of legal proceedings to fight against the extradition order, and it took more than three years before finally, his fourth and last appeal was rejected by the High Court of Australia after the first three appeals failed. McCrea was thus kept in a straitjacket for two weeks after the final rejection, to stop him from harming himself. He was brought back to Singapore by flight on 27 September 2005, where he was officially charged with two counts of murder in the
Subordinate Courts of Singapore
The State Courts of Singapore (formerly the Subordinate Courts) is one of the three categories of courts in Singapore, the other categories being the Supreme Court and Family Justice Courts. The State Courts comprise the District and Magistrate Co ...
. He was remanded for psychiatric evaluation in October 2005 after some investigations and was set to stand trial on a later date.
A Law Ministry spokesman said at the time with regards to the bargaining in the extradition of McCrea: "Without the undertaking, extraditing McCrea and bringing him to justice is not possible. We will then have a situation where an accused will completely escape trial in Singapore or elsewhere."
Michael McCrea's trial and sentence
Guilty plea and submissions
On 25 June 2006, nine months after he was extradited back to Singapore, 48-year-old Michael McCrea was brought to trial in the
High Court for killing Kho Nai Guan and Lan Ya Ming. By then, after McCrea's defence lawyer Kelvin Lim made some representations to the prosecution and some pre-trial conferences, the prosecution agreed to reduce the murder charges to lesser offences of
culpable homicide
Culpable homicide is a categorisation of certain offences in various jurisdictions within the Commonwealth of Nations which involves the illegal killing of a person either with or without an intention to kill depending upon how a particular j ...
not amounting to murder, which were not punishable by death. The reduction was done not out of the agreement with the Australian government, as the agreement was centered around the reassurance to not hang McCrea even if he was found guilty of murder, but rather from the prosecution's review of its case against McCrea.
Not only that, the prosecution also brought up a third charge of causing evidence to disappear against McCrea, who expressed his intention to plead guilty to the reduced criminal charges, as well as the fresh charge proceeding against him. The reduction of the original charges meant that McCrea would not be sentenced to death even if found guilty. McCrea's two culpable homicide charges were second-degree and lacked the intention to kill by nature under Section 304(b) of the Penal Code, the maximum penalty for each charge was ten years' imprisonment, in addition to a possible fine.
In his mitigation, Michael McCrea pleaded for a lenient sentence, as he was psychologically haunted by his own conscience and felt remorse for his reprehensible actions. He stated that he and Kho shared a brotherly friendship since they first met in 1998. McCrea also raised out his own emotions and frequent concern for Kho's welfare, which lasted up till the day he killed Kho during their fight, when he asked Kho to go to bed after hearing he was not feeling well from taking drugs during their drinks session prior to Kho's alleged insulting of Ong. The lawyer also asked that McCrea be given a lighter penalty given that the deaths were resultant of a sudden fight and McCrea's exercising of his self-defence, and there was no intention to cause the deaths of Kho and Lan that fateful night, and that McCrea tried to revive Kho upon finding that his heartbeat has stopped.
In rebuttal, the prosecution, led by Deputy Public Prosecutors (DPP) Christopher Ong and Wong Kok Weng, asked the court to take into consideration the aggravating factors of the case. Firstly, McCrea's assault of Kho was totally disproportionate to the provocation that arise from Kho's insult of Ong and for this small matter, Kho was being assaulted grievously to the point of injury and death; Kho's smashing of the vase on McCrea's head was merely a response to McCrea's physical confrontation and aggressiveness shown to Kho upon receiving word from Ong that Kho insulted her. For Lan, she was merely at the wrong place at the wrong time during Kho's assault and she was being confined and locked up for witnessing Kho's death. She was completely at McCrea's mercy when she was being wrapped up in cloth and plastic but none were shown by McCrea, and she was still alive at the time the plastic bags were tied around her, causing her to suffocate to death. Also, they pointed out that rather than admitting to his crimes and contacting the authorities, McCrea only cared about covering up his acts and looking for the bonus he paid Kho prior to his death, and even fled the country to escape punishment. For this, the prosecution urged the court to mete out a stiff penalty for McCrea for the Orchard Towers double killings.
Verdict
Four days later, on 29 June 2006, High Court judge
Choo Han Teck
Choo Han Teck (born 21 February 1954) is a Singaporean judge of the Supreme Court. He was formerly a lawyer before his appointment to the court as a judge. It was revealed in 2021 that Choo was one of the defence lawyers representing Adrian Lim ...
sentenced McCrea to a total of 24 years' imprisonment. He first imposed the maximum ten-year term of imprisonment for each of the two culpable homicide charges for both Kho's and Lan's deaths and a third consecutive term of four years' imprisonment for causing the evidence of the killings to disappear. Justice Choo stated that he did not buy the fact that McCrea was remorseful of his actions, as he did not choose to surrender and face the consequences of his actions and even flew out of Singapore before the discovery of his crimes and before the authorities could apprehend him. He also stated that McCrea had extensively battered Kho and caused his death over a relatively simple, small matter. Lan's death was a result of McCrea trying to prevent her from leaving the flat, and kicked her in the head before killing her, all because he wanted to find Kho's money in the aftermath of Kho's killing.
For this, McCrea deserved the highest punishment the court could give for his first two charges of culpable homicide, and these first two terms were to be served consecutively in view of the separate, distinct nature of the two offences. With regards to McCrea's third consecutive term of four years over the disappearance of evidence, Justice Choo noted that it was lower than the six years Audrey Ong received for each charge of the same crime McCrea was convicted of despite his more principal role in covering up the crimes, but he stated that McCrea faced more serious charges relating to offences affecting life unlike Ong, which made it reasonable should the penalty for this third crime in McCrea's case was lesser than Ong.
When responding to the defence's request to backdate McCrea's 24-year sentence to the date of his arrest in Australia four years earlier (or at least to the date of his first day of remand in Singapore after his extradition), Justice Choo stated that he, as a judge, should be taking into consideration the facts of the case before he can exercise his powers of discretion to backdate the jail term. He laid out that for the approximate first three years, McCrea spent them behind bars in Australia while he was fighting tooth and nail against his extradition order, and hence it did not make sense and would be "invidious" for McCrea to serve his sentence four years less in Singapore. Since there were no significant mitigating factors other than his lack of criminal records for violent offences, Justice Choo said there was no reason for him to backdate McCrea's sentence to any of the dates requested by Lim.
According to Kelvin Lim, his 48-year-old client was stunned and shocked to hear that his sentence was only effective from the day of his sentencing, and personally to McCrea, the 24-year jail term was quite a "crushing" sentence. Some members of the public, including one who wrote a letter to ''
The Straits Times
''The Straits Times'' is an English-language daily broadsheet newspaper based in Singapore and currently owned by SPH Media Trust (previously Singapore Press Holdings). ''The Sunday Times'' is its Sunday edition. The newspaper was established ...
'' (a national daily newspaper in Singapore), felt that McCrea's punishment was too light for him.
Michael McCrea's appeal and outcome
Michael McCrea appealed to the
Court of Appeal of Singapore
The Court of Appeal of Singapore is the nation's highest court and court of final appeal. It is the upper division of the Supreme Court of Singapore, the lower being the High Court. The Court of Appeal consists of the chief justice, who is ...
for a lighter sentence. However, the three-judge panel, consisting of
Chief Justice Yong Pung How
Yong Pung How (11 April 1926 – 9 January 2020) was a Malayan-born Singaporean judge, lawyer and banker who served as the second chief justice of Singapore between 1990 and 2006, appointed by President Wee Kim Wee. He also served as the chan ...
, High Court judge
V K Rajah
Vijaya Kumar Rajah (born 14 January 1957), better known as V. K. Rajah, is a Singaporean lawyer who was the eighth attorney-general of Singapore between 2014 and 2017 and a former judge of the Supreme Court.
Early life
Rajah was born in Singapo ...
and Judge of Appeal
Andrew Phang
Andrew Phang Boon Leong (born 15 December 1957) is a Singaporean judge in the Supreme Court.
Early life and education
Phang was born in 1957 in Singapore. Phang received his Bachelor of Laws (first class honours) from the University of Sing ...
, were not convinced that McCrea was remorseful of his crimes and thus refused to reduce the sentence. Rather, the three-judge panel nearly considered increasing the jail term, which by maximum, could be raised to three years longer than the original term, as the charge of causing evidence to disappear carried the maximum penalty of seven years in prison (three years more than the four years McCrea received for this offence). Still, the Court of Appeal elected to not do so due to the lack of merit in the appeal, and hence McCrea escaped the worst possibility of serving a total of 27 years in jail.
When Lim argued for a concurrent ten-year sentence during the appeal hearing (which will possibly allow McCrea to serve 14 years' jail), one of the judges - Justice Andrew Phang - issued strong words against him for asking for two concurrent jail terms when the case involved two lives being lost. When Lim also raised the fact that McCrea tried to revive Kho, Justice Phang asked Lim, "Your best friend, your brother, is dying. Put yourself in your client's position. What would you have done?" Lim replied, "I would call an ambulance." At this reply, Justice Phang immediately shot back, "Yes. It's common humanity." As such, the appeal ended with dismissal on 23 August 2006.
If he maintained good behaviour behind bars, McCrea would be granted a one-third remission of his 24-year sentence and he would be tentatively released on 29 June 2022 after serving at least 16 years of imprisonment behind bars. By then, McCrea would be 64 years old at the time of his early release.
Aftermath
Crime documentary series ''
True Files
''True Files'' (Chinese: 真实档案) is an English language television docu-drama telecast on MediaCorp Channel 5, with each episode (except the last episode of Season 3, ''The Unsolved'') re-enacting major court proceedings, mostly of murder, ...
'' re-enacted the case. The sixth episode of the show's fifth and final season, which featured the murder and trials of the murderers, first aired on 11 February 2007. The episode is currently available in
meWATCH
meWATCH is a Singaporean digital video on demand service brand owned by Mediacorp. It was launched on 1 February 2013 as an over-the-top media service and an entertainment and lifestyle website Toggle.
On 1 April 2015, xinmsn, an internet por ...
. McCrea's lawyer Kelvin Lim was interviewed in the episode about the case.
The Orchard Towers double murder case was considered a notable crime that shook Singapore. In July 2015, Singapore's national daily newspaper ''
The Straits Times
''The Straits Times'' is an English-language daily broadsheet newspaper based in Singapore and currently owned by SPH Media Trust (previously Singapore Press Holdings). ''The Sunday Times'' is its Sunday edition. The newspaper was established ...
'' published an e-book titled ''Guilty As Charged: 25 Crimes That Have Shaken Singapore Since 1965'', which included the 2002 Orchard Towers double killings as one of the top 25 crimes that shocked the nation since its independence in 1965. The book was borne out of collaboration between the
Singapore Police Force
The Singapore Police Force (SPF) is the national and principal law enforcement agency responsible for the prevention of crime and law enforcement in the Republic of Singapore. It is the country's lead agency against organised crime; human, wea ...
and the newspaper itself. The e-book was edited by ST News Associate editor Abdul Hafiz bin Abdul Samad. The paperback edition of the book was published and first hit bookshelves in June 2017. The paperback edition first entered the ST bestseller list on 8 August 2017, a month after publication.
Also, the case of McCrea's extradition became a precedent case where the
Government of Singapore
The Government of Singapore is defined by the Constitution of Singapore to mean the executive branch of the state, which is made up of the president and the Cabinet. Although the president acts in their personal discretion in the exercise ...
could negotiate for the extradition of suspects from other countries that did not practice capital punishment or
caning
Caning is a form of corporal punishment consisting of a number of hits (known as "strokes" or "cuts") with a single Stick-fighting, cane usually made of rattan, generally applied to the offender's bare or clothed buttocks (see spanking) or ha ...
etc. The Orchard Towers double murder and McCrea's extradition case were recalled when in 2018, the Government of Singapore sent a request to the
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...
, which abolished caning for all crimes in 1948, to extradite
David James Roach
The 2016 Standard Chartered bank robbery was a bank robbery that took place in Singapore on 7 July 2016. Bank robberies are rare in Singapore, with the last successful robbery occurring in 2004. A total of S$30,045 was robbed, and the perpetrato ...
, a
Canadian
Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...
bank robber who robbed a bank in Singapore, on the assurance that Roach would not be caned even if he was found guilty of robbery, a crime which warrants mandatory caning in addition to imprisonment in Singapore. Roach had fled to
Thailand
Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 million. The country is bo ...
after committing the crime in July 2016, and he spent 14 months in a Thai prison for violation of currency regulations and money laundering before he was caught in
London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
upon Singapore's request for his capture. The assurance for Roach to not be caned allowed the
British government
ga, Rialtas a Shoilse gd, Riaghaltas a Mhòrachd
, image = HM Government logo.svg
, image_size = 220px
, image2 = Royal Coat of Arms of the United Kingdom (HM Government).svg
, image_size2 = 180px
, caption = Royal Arms
, date_es ...
to send Roach back to Singapore for trial in 2020; Roach was sentenced to serve a five-year term of imprisonment and an additional six strokes of the cane in July 2021, and the caning was cancelled after
President
President most commonly refers to:
*President (corporate title)
*President (education), a leader of a college or university
*President (government title)
President may also refer to:
Automobiles
* Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ful ...
Halimah Yacob
Halimah Yacob (Jawi script: ; born 23 August 1954) is a Singaporean politician and former lawyer who has been serving as the eighth president of Singapore since 2017. Prior to her presidency, she was the country's Speaker of the Parliament of S ...
granted Roach clemency shortly after his sentencing.
The Orchard Towers double homicide case was not the only case that associated the
Orchard Towers
Orchard Towers is an 18-story office building in Singapore located on the corner of Claymore Road and Orchard Road. Construction was completed in 1975. The first five floors are a combination of bars and retail outlets with the remainder leased ...
with murder. 17 years after the deaths of Kho Nai Guan and Lan Ya Ming, in July 2019, a 31-year-old chemist named
Satheesh Noel Gobidass
The 2019 Orchard Towers murder was a murder case where a group of men killed 31-year-old Satheesh Noel Gobidass, who sustained several knife wounds and died at Orchard Towers on 2 July 2019. The murder was not the first case that involved the ...
was killed during a fight. Seven suspects were arrested and charged, but one of them, Tan Sen Yang, was confirmed to stand trial for murder while the remaining six were sentenced to serve jail terms for lower charges.
See also
*
Capital punishment in Singapore
Capital punishment is a legal penalty in Singapore. Executions are carried out by long drop hanging, and usually take place at dawn. 33 offences— including murder, drug trafficking, terrorism, use of firearms and kidnapping — warrant the ...
*
List of major crimes in Singapore (before 2000)
The following is a list of major crimes in Singapore that happened before 2000. They are arranged in chronological order.
1950s 1950
* 29 June 1950: Winnie Annie Spencer, a ten-year-old schoolgirl, was found dead at the beach near Labra ...
*
List of major crimes in Singapore (2000–present)
The following is a list of major crimes in Singapore that happened in 2000 and beyond. They are arranged in chronological order.
2000s 2000
* 7 February 2000: 27-year-old Linda Chua, a finance executive, was brutally assaulted and rape ...
*
2019 Orchard Towers murder
*
Orchard Towers murders (disambiguation)
References
{{reflist
Murder in Singapore
People convicted of culpable homicide
Capital punishment in Singapore
Fugitives wanted by Singapore
British people imprisoned abroad
British people convicted of manslaughter
British prisoners and detainees