Death of Linda Chua

Last updated
Linda Chua
Born1972
Singapore
Died14 February 2000
Cause of death Murdered
Education Nanyang Technological University
OccupationFinance executive
Known forMurder victim

On 6 February 2000, 27-year-old Linda Chua was jogging in Bukit Batok Nature Park when she was attacked and raped. She was later found naked in a 10-metre-deep ravine in the park with her clothes next to her. She was taken to the National University Hospital but died several days later on 14 February. [1] Her attackers were never caught and the case remains unsolved to this day. [2]

Contents

Background

Linda Chua, the second of four children of a retired businessman and a housewife, was a financial reporting manager at Exxon Mobil. [1] She had a fiancé, who she met while they were both freshmen at Nanyang Technological University in 1991. They had been planning to get married in December that year. [2]

Investigations

Police interviewed hundreds of people, but did not find any useful leads. [3]

In March, Singaporean TV crime show Crimewatch broadcast a public appeal for information about the case in the show's first episode that year. [4]

On 29 March, citizens' groups, the public and Chua's friends offered a reward of $80,000 for information about the culprits behind the attack. [5]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Central Park jogger case</span> 1989 crime in New York City

The Central Park jogger case was a criminal case concerning the assault and rape of Trisha Meili, a woman who was running in Central Park in Manhattan, New York, on April 19, 1989. Crime in New York City was peaking in the late 1980s and early 1990s as the crack epidemic surged. On the night Meili was attacked, dozens of teenagers had entered the park, and there were reports of muggings and physical assaults.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bukit Batok</span> Planning Area and HDB Town in West Region ----, Singapore

Bukit Batok, often abbreviated as Bt Batok, is a planning area and matured residential town located along the eastern boundary of the West Region of Singapore. Bukit Batok statistically ranks in as the 25th largest, the 12th most populous and the 11th most densely populated planning area in Singapore. It is bordered by six other planning areas - Choa Chu Kang to the north, northeast and northwest, Cashew to the northeast and east, Clementi to the south, Bukit Timah to the southeast, Jurong East to the southwest and Tengah to the west.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bukit Gombak</span> Place in Singapore

Bukit Gombak is a subzone of Bukit Batok, Singapore. It is a hilly neighbourhood in the west-central area of the Southeast Asian city-state of Singapore. In the Malay language, bukit means hill and gombak a bunch or collection of something. The neighbourhood consists of two hills. One of them stands at 133m while the other stands at 113m. They are Singapore's second and third highest natural point after Bukit Timah Hill.

Tay Yong Kwang is a Singaporean judge of the Supreme Court. He was first appointed Judicial Commissioner in 1997, appointed Judge in 2003, and appointed Judge of Appeal in 2016. He was noted for being the presiding judge in several notable cases that shocked the nation and made headlines in Singapore. He was most recently re-appointed for a further two year term on the Court of Appeal from 3 September 2024.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bukit Batok Single Member Constituency</span> Electoral ward in Singapore

Bukit Batok Single Member Constituency (SMC) is a single member constituency in Bukit Batok of Singapore. It used to exist from 1972 to 1988 as Bukit Batok Constituency and was renamed as Bukit Batok Single Member Constituency (SMC) as part of Singapore's political reforms. The current Member of Parliament for the constituency is People's Action Party (PAP) Murali Pillai.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Murali Pillai</span> Singaporean politician and lawyer

K. Muralidharan Pillai, better known as Murali Pillai, is a Singaporean politician and lawyer. A member of the governing People's Action Party (PAP), he has been the Minister of State for Transport, Minister of State for Law since July 2024 and Member of Parliament (MP) representing Bukit Batok SMC since May 2016.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Murder of Koh Ngiap Yong</span> 2000 armed robbery and murder in Singapore

On 8 August 2000 in Singapore, a group of three men, who were armed with firearms with an intent to commit robbery, had robbed and killed a taxi driver in midst of a planned crime spree. The victim was a 42-year-old taxi driver named Koh Ngiap Yong, whose taxi was taken by the trio as an escape vehicle for future robbery crimes and whom the three men killed by using a bayonet to stab him to death. In the aftermath of Koh's murder, the robbers had committed yet another robbery and also shot and killed their next victim, 39-year-old Jahabar Sathick, an Indian moneychanger.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Murder of Dexmon Chua</span> 2013 murder case in Singapore

Dexmon Chua Yizhi was a material analyst and Singaporean who was brutally murdered in Singapore by his former girlfriend's husband, Chia Kee Chen, who craved revenge on Chua for having an affair with his wife and had convinced two people to help him abduct and kill Chua. Chua's death was due to a grievous assault that caused severe fatal injuries. Dexmon Chua was 37 years old when he died at Lim Chu Kang on 28 December 2013.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Death of Winnifred Teo</span> Unsolved rape and murder case of a female jogger in Singapore (1985)

On the evening of 22 May 1985, 18-year-old Winnifred Teo Suan Lie, then a student of Catholic Junior College, went out for an evening jog as usual, but never came back. The next morning, Teo's naked body was found lying in the undergrowth off Old Holland Road, Singapore. She had several stab wounds on her body and was sexually assaulted prior to her death. Autopsy reports showed that Teo was restrained and put up a fierce struggle against her killer(s) before her death from excessive blood loss.

On 26 August 1996, at a flat in Bedok Reservoir Road, 25-year-old Jimmy Chua Hwa Soon, an army sergeant of the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF), brutally slashed his 39-year-old sister-in-law Neo Lam Lye and four-year-old nephew. While the boy survived the attack, Neo died as a result of 109 stab and slash wounds on her body. Chua was arrested five hours after the cruel attack, and he admitted to the killing, revealing that he had an affair with Neo ten years prior to the murder. Although Chua put up a defence of diminished responsibility against the charges of attempted murder and murder, the High Court found him guilty of murder and sentenced him to death. The Court of Appeal's subsequent ruling of Chua's case became a notable legal case report which emphasized on the requirements to find a person liable to the defence of diminished responsibility against a criminal charge in Singapore.

On 10 May 2020, 38-year-old assistant manager Tay Rui Hao was attacked by another person while he was jogging in the night along Punggol Field. Tay, who sustained multiple stab wounds, was able to call an ambulance, but he died at Sengkang General Hospital. The police investigations led to the arrest of 20-year-old Surajsrikan Diwakar Mani Tripathi. Surajsrikan was charged with murder a week after killing Tay; his motive was allegedly negative emotions he harboured over his father abandoning his family 21 years before, on the same date he killed Tay.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Life imprisonment in Singapore</span>

Life imprisonment is a legal penalty in Singapore. This sentence is applicable for more than forty offences under Singapore law, such as culpable homicide not amounting to murder, attempted murder, kidnapping by ransom, criminal breach of trust by a public servant, voluntarily causing grievous hurt with dangerous weapons, and trafficking of firearms, in addition to caning or a fine for certain offences that warrant life imprisonment.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dini Haryati rape and murder</span> 1998 unsolved rape-murder of an Indonesian student at Singapore

On 6 January 1998, two days after she went missing, the semi-naked corpse of 19-year-old Dini Haryati, an Indonesian student and intern hotel receptionist working in Singapore, was discovered in a forest at Woodlands, with injuries to her head, abdomen and neck. An autopsy report revealed that Dini had been raped before she died from a skull fracture. The police conducted extensive investigations to solve the case and sought information on any suspects behind the brutal rape-murder, which shocked the whole nation at that time. However, due to a lack of clues and suspects, the murder remains unsolved as of today.

On 19 November 1980, the body of 8-year-old Goh Beng Choo was found behind a Taoist temple in Bukit Batok, Singapore.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Death of Soh San</span> 2001 case of a lift robbery-turned homicide in Singapore

On 2 October 2001, 28-year-old Soh San, who was a manager of a telecommunications company, was found dead with her body stuck between the lift doors of her flat in Bukit Batok. She had sustained several knife wounds to her chest and abdomen. Soh's death remained unsolved for the next 12 years before a 28-year-old man surrendered himself and confessed to having stabbed Soh nine times during a robbery.

On 16 October 2008, during a heated argument inside her car, 47-year-old Choo Xue Ying, alias Jennifer Choo, was assaulted to death by a business partner Rosli bin Yassin, and abandoned it at Bukit Batok Nature Park, where Choo's skeletal remains were discovered four days after her death. Rosli, who was later found to have committed cheating following the murder itself, was arrested and charged with killing Choo, and his girlfriend was also charged with abetting him to commit cheating. Rosli's murder charge was subsequently reduced to manslaughter, and after pleading guilty to the reduced charge and several other unrelated charges for cheating, Rosli was sentenced to 12 years of preventive detention on account of his long criminal record, and subsequently, through the prosecution's appeal, Rosli's sentence of preventive detention was raised to the maximum of 20 years for the same reason, as well as due to his high risk of re-offending and his original sentence was manifestly inadequate.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Murder of Noor Suzaily Mukhtar</span> 2000 rape-murder of an engineer in Malaysia

On 7 October 2000, 34-year-old Hanafi Mat Hassan, a bus driver previously charged for property offences and rape, attacked a female passenger on his bus, raping and murdering her at a secluded area near Bukit Tinggi, Klang in Selangor, Malaysia. The corpse of the victim, 24-year-old computer engineer Noor Suzaily Mukhtar, was later found at a construction site, and autopsy reports confirmed that she was raped and sodomized before her death via strangulation. Hanafi was arrested and charged with murder weeks after the crime. Hanafi was found guilty of murder and sentenced to death in April 2002 and additionally given a 20-year jail term with 12 strokes of the cane for rape. Hanafi's appeals were dismissed and he was hanged on 19 December 2008.

References

  1. 1 2 "Bukit Batok rape victim dies, now it's murder". The Straits Times. 2000-02-19. Retrieved 2023-12-10.
  2. 1 2 "From the ST archives: Woman who died after brutal assault and rape had a bright future". The Straits Times. 2000-02-16. ISSN   0585-3923 . Retrieved 2023-12-10.
  3. "Jogger was not raped". Today. 2003-07-02. Retrieved 2023-12-10.
  4. "Ep 1 Singapore Crime Statistics / Bukit Batok Rape & Murder". mewatch. Retrieved 2023-12-10.
  5. "$80,000 offer". The New Paper. 2000-03-29. Retrieved 2023-12-10.