Cold Blooded Murders

by Alex Josey

  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?

  Counsel went on to say that after Jenny jumped in, Sunny Ang fastened on his own air-tank. Then he asked the boatman to release the valve. When the boatman did this, Ang heard the sound of escaping air, and so he asked the boatman to turn the valve off. Ang explained that the air-tank was leaking. He took off the air-tank and detached the breathing assembly and told the boatman there was no washer in the outlet of the tank. “This is not such a startling discovery,” Mr Seow told the jury, “because it is immediately apparent to anyone whether the washer in the outlet of the tank is missing or not before the regulator is fixed to the tank. I suggest that Sunny Ang deliberately tampered with his own tank so that the missing washer would provide him with an excuse for not joining Jenny in the sea. This explained his subsequent failure to search for her when Jenny failed to surface.”

  Ang and the boatman managed to improvise a washer from the strap of Ang’s own diving mask, which Ang fitted into the outlet of his tank. But, when he released the valve the washer was forced out of place. Ang made another washer, and, with the first, again tried to fit them into the outlet. But the air still escaped. At this stage, Ang stopped working on the tank and tugged at the ‘shot’ rope three times. Ang then asked the boatman in Malay, “Where is that girl?” The boatman replied, “I don’t know.” Ang then pulled in the ‘shot’ rope, but there was no sign of Jenny. Ang asked the boatman to look for air bubbles, but there were none. The boatman advised Ang to go to St John’s Island, to telephone the police, and so off they went. From St John’s Island they went to a neighbouring island to collect some Malay fishermen. Then they went back to the spot when Jenny had disappeared. Repeatedly, the Malays dived in, but Jenny was missing. Ang, meanwhile, remained in the boat. He did not join in the diving for the girl he planned, he said, to marry. Instead, he had a discussion with one Malay fisherman about the buoyancy of the air-tanks and to prove his argument that they would float, he dropped Jenny’s original tank into the sea. It slowly sank out of sight. No efforts were made to recover it. Ang did not ask the divers to get it, and thus this tank, worth $125, disappeared, like Jenny. Counsel pointed out that an air-tank, when it becomes empty, becomes progressively buoyant, and will, therefore float. If Jenny’s original tank had been empty it would have floated and not sunk to the sea-bed. The fact that it did sink proved the tank still contained a lot of air. Why, therefore, did Ang change Jenny’s original tank? Why did he not use this tank, after finding that his own was leaking, to search for Jenny when she failed to surface? What did he do to the second tank he strapped on Jenny’s back?

  In response to his telephone call from St John’s Island for help, Marine Police launches arrived on the scene, but they were unable to join in the search because of darkness. It gets dark in Singapore about seven o’clock most evenings throughout the year.

  Counsel stressed that from the time when Jenny disappeared and throughout the Malay divers’ search, Sunny Ang remained ‘singularly calm and detached’. He was brought back to the Marine Police Station in Singapore, where he made a report. Later the same evening, Jenny’s clothes and personal effects, including a gold ring, were returned to her relatives. “Within five hours after Ang had renewed
Jenny’s American Insurance policy, Jenny was dead. In Ang’s own words Jenny was ‘presumed to have either drowned or been attacked by a shark’. The next day Ang sat down and typed three letters to the insurance companies informing them of the tragedy and the circumstances of Jenny’s death.”

  Royal Navy and RAF divers were brought in by the Marine police to search for Jenny’s body. They carried out several searches, but without success. On 3 September 1963, however, a former RAF diver recovered a green flipper. The heel-strap had been severed. He found it wedged between the rocks off the Sisters Islands. This flipper was subsequently identified by a schoolboy as the one he had lent his classmate, William Ang, brother of Sunny Ang. Counsel suggested the jury would have little difficulty in coming to the conclusion that it was one of the flippers worn by Jenny that fateful afternoon.

  Experts decided that the strap had been cut by a sharp instrument, a razor or sharp pair of scissors, in two places to weaken the strap. Because of these cuts the strap had burst. The experts held that the cuts could not have been caused by corals: the strap had been deliberately cut.

  Counsel then went on to tell the jury that after Ang had been arrested, the police seized four books on skin-diving. In one of these books, Skin Diving with Snorkel and Aqualung, the author. Jack Atkinson, describes by way of a cautionary tale, a hypothetical story of the dangers a boy and a girl could meet while skin-diving. It ended with this interesting passage: ‘A torn fin strap, a broken mask buckle, or a loose mouth-piece … could have ended in tragedy ... a tiny nick in rubber will tear wide open with little strain.” Two-thirds of the strap on Jenny’s flipper had been cut. Why? If, as a result of the cuts, the strap burst and the diver got into difficulties and was drowned, who would benefit from her death? Who, asked Mr Seow, had the strongest motives to see Jenny dead? Mr Seow revealed that Ang had actually tried to get a total insurance coverage of $900,000 on Jenny’s life. In the end he got $450,000.

  Once Jenny had disappeared, Sunny Ang and his mother, Madam Yeo Bee Neo, made strenuous efforts through various solicitors to prove Jenny’s death in order to collect this money. They insisted that Jenny was dead, ‘and, members of the jury, who was in a better position than Sunny Ang to assert with such finality that Jenny was, indeed, dead?’

  The rest of the first day of the trial was taken up by witnesses involved in the insurance policies. An official of the Great Eastern Life Insurance Company Limited produced a letter from Jenny. It read as follows:

  Cheok Cheng Kid

  33, Lim Liak St.,

  Singapore, 3.

  28 June 1963

  Dear Sir,

  Regard to your letter LKT/MT your agent have ask me many times to buy insurance. I think good idea to save money. So I buy policy for 20 year endowment for $10,000 (with, not without profit) cost about $40 one month and I also very happy can buy $200,000 insurance for only $20 one month. I feel happy got insurance because I dream my died father tell me if I buy insurance I cannot get accident or harm—like good luck charm. Also I can afford it, all only $60 one month. I earn more $450 one month. If amount too big, less it, I not mind.

  Next month I want to buy 10 year endowment for $30,000 policy. I want to save money for open dressmaking shop next time. Then I no need work in bar. But I get cold now, cannot go for doctor exam. My cold OK then I go.

  Madam Yeo Bee Neo is old lady is my friend mother I like better than my own mother. My own mother married another man already. My father is died. But name I anyhow put, I may change to my sister I also like very much. But now name not important, I can always change.

  Yours faithfully

  [sgd] Cheok Cheng Kid

  Later, the witness received another letter. He read it to the Court. It went as follows:

  Cheok Cheng Kid

  33, Lim Liak St.,

  Singapore, 3.

  2 July 1963

  The Actuary

  The Great Eastern Life Assurance Co Ltd

  16, Cecil Street,

  Singapore, 1.

  Dear Sir,

  Further to my letter dated 28 June, 1963, I wish to add, in order to dispel any fears you may justifiably have, that I am prepared to narrow down the scope of your double indemnity cover to exclude liability from death through third party agency, whether felonious or accidental.

  Believe me I want accident cover just for the sake of having it for the reason I disclosed in my last letter, and because I may make occasional flights in commercial aircraft in the near future to the Borneo territories.

  I expect of course a proportionate reduction of the premium charged, or since I’ve paid about $21 DI premiums, how much more cover can I obtain for the same premium at the reduced rate? The above reduced-liability clause, would, of course, not apply to the endowment sum.

  Thank you.

  Yours faithfully

  [sgd] Cheok Cheng Kid

  By the end of the second day 13 witnesses had given evidence for the prosecution, including K. T. Ooi, a senior partner of Braddell Brothers, the lawyer who drew up a will for Jenny. She left her estate to Ang’s mother. Ang was present when the will was drawn up. At the end of the third day, Justice Buttrose granted the defence a week’s postponement after being told that the prosecution intended to call an additional expert witness. He said it was ‘most disgraceful’ that the prosecution had not completed its investigation when the case came up for hearing. Mr Seow explained that it was only after the case had been fixed for trial that it occurred to him to call in a scuba-diving expert.

  The key prosecution witness, the boatman, Yusuf bin Ahmad, gave evidence when the trial was resumed on Wednesday, 5 May 1965, the fourth day of the trial. It was during this day’s hearings that the judge described as ‘scandalous’ the circumstances which led to the defence counsel interviewing Yusuf while Ang was under arrest.

  Yusuf bin Ahmad gave his evidence in Malay.

  In the Lower Court, during the inquiry, Mr Seow had created something in the nature of a sensation when he revealed that attempts had been made to suborn his main witness, Yusuf. Mr Seow told the magistrate that Yusuf had been given two sums of money and a gift. Yusuf himself disclosed that he had received two sums totalling $40 and a tin of milk powder. Mr Seow protested that Yusuf had been approached by the accused’s mother, and by his brother Richard, on both occasions after Ang’s arrest. Mr Seow said, “Money, in fact, had been given to the witness and a gift in kind, before this witness was brought to counsel for the defence. Money also had in fact been given to him after he had seen Mr Coomaraswamy.” Mr Seow argued that Mr Coomaraswamy had no business whatsoever to interview or record a statement from Yusuf. “What,” he asked, “was the object of giving this witness money?”

  Mr Coomaraswamy agreed that he did see Yusuf. “I did it knowing full well what I was doing and after obtaining professional advice on the matter.” He claimed he acted with the utmost propriety both as an officer of the Court and also as an honest man.

  Yusuf told the Lower Court that after his interview with Mr Coomaraswamy he was given $30 by Mr Coomaraswamy to compensate for loss of earnings for that day and his fare. He said his minimum earnings a day were $3–4, and the highest was $20. He said Mr Coomaraswamy had told him not to receive any money from any other person in connection with the case.

  At the trial before Justice Buttrose, this interview with Mr Coomaraswamy in his chambers was the subject of a brisk exchange between Mr Coomaraswamy and Justice Buttrose. Mr Coomaraswamy was cross-examining Yusuf.

  Mr Coomaraswamy: Did the accused’s mother ever at any time ask you to change your story?

  Yusuf: No.

  Mr Coomaraswamy: Did I ask you at any time to change your story?

  Yusuf: No.

  His Lordship: I would be delighted to hear that, Mr Coomaraswamy, because if you did, you would be off the Rolls, I am afraid.

  Mr Coomaraswamy: My Lord, I do not want to force myself into the position where I have to defend myself and defend my client at the same time. But
perhaps, in view of your Lordship’s earlier statement about something scandalous, I have to make a statement—

  His Lordship: Well, speaking entirely for myself, Mr Coomaraswamy, when a crime has been committed and persons were being arrested in connection with it, and you know full well that the person you seek to interview is a key witness to this incident, I am appalled at what has taken place. I will say no more than that—I am appalled. Well, it has nothing to do with this case, so let us forget it for the moment. Quite apart from other considerations it is crass foolishness doing a thing like that. Can’t you see it yourself?

  Mr Coomaraswamy: Well, I must, I am afraid, defend myself at this stage.

  His Lordship: No, no. There is no question of defence—there are certain views which I should like to express at a proper stage, if necessary. You will be given every opportunity to do so. I am not going to say anything, but solely on this question of whether the accused committed this offence or not.