Andrew Road triple murders

On the fateful morning of 23 July 1983, at around 8 am, 10-year-old Dawn Jacinta Tay Aishan (郑爱姗), the youngest daughter of 61-year-old retired businessman Robert Tay Bak Hong (郑木丰), was roller-skating outside her house while waiting for her Mandarin tuition teacher, Mdm Tang So Ha (邓淑霞) to come to her house to give her lessons. At around the same time, two houses away from the little girl's home, there were two young men fixing their motorcycle. It was around 30 minutes later then the tutor arrived at the house.

40 minutes after the arrival of Dawn's tutor, the two men seen repairing the motorcycle - 19-year-old National Serviceman (NSman) Sek Kim Wah and 19-year-old Malaysian Nyu Kok Meng - saw the front gate of Dawn's bungalow left wide open. They took out a loaded M16 rifle (which Sek stole from Nee Soon military camp where he served his National Service) and brandished a knife before barging into the bungalow, first taking the Tay family's Filipino domestic helper Jovita S. Virador, aged 27, hostage. They entered the house with Jovita and used the rifle to threaten Dawn, Mdm Tang, and Dawn's 40-year-old mother Annie Low Au Ie (刘爱仪), forcing them inside a room before tying them up. One of the men forced Dawn to call her father (who was in the back garden) up into the room; Robert Tay was lured into the room and was tied up as well.

After telling Sek where to find her jewellery, Low was told to write a cheque of $5000, which was immediately taken by Sek to the bank to cash while Nyu stayed behind to guard the hostages. Feeling sorry for the tutor whose head was covered in a plastic bag, he removed it for her. Sek returned with the money but was not satisfied with the loot they had from the robbery, so picked up Tay and told him to go to the bank with him to withdraw more cash. During the time Sek was out with Tay, Nyu told the women that he would not harm them, as it was his first robbery and he had no intention to harm anyone. At the request of Low, Nyu shook hands with Dawn as a promise to not hurt them.

Sek later returned with $7,000. After gagging the victims and taking Tay, Low, and Jovita into separate rooms, the robbers continued to ransack the house. Afraid of leaving behind witnesses, Sek secretly formed an intention to murder all the hostages. He first used a raffia string to strangle Tay before using a wooden stool to repeatedly bludgeon him until he was dead, fracturing his skull. He also entered the master bedroom where he held Jovita and Low hostage and fatally strangled the women, again using a wooden stool to repeatedly strike Low's covered head.

After being attracted by the thumping sounds in the house and witnessing Sek's actions, Nyu armed himself with the rifle and lock himself into the room with Dawn and her tutor, intending to protect the surviving hostages. Sek later returned to the room where Nyu, Dawn, and Mdm Tang were hiding and demanded that Nyu let him in to murder the remaining hostages before making their escape, while actually intending to also kill Nyu. Nyu adamantly refused and asked Sek why would he commit murder when he had already robbed the victims of their money, and told Sek to leave. After a heated row between the two men, Sek left the house in Mr Tay's Mercedes car with the loot from the robbery.

Nyu then released both Dawn and Mdm Tang and told them to run away, informing them of the murder of Dawn's parents and maid and furnishing them with Sek's address. He drew a map of the area where Sek lived in on an envelope and gave it to Mdm Tang, who was afraid that Nyu might cause harm to her and her student and secretly armed herself with a small knife which she could use to defend both of them if Nyu attempt to harm them. Nyu also gave her his Malaysian identity card, telling her to help him buy a coffin and inform his parents and grandmother that he was sorry as he wanted to commit suicide. He also asked Mdm Tang to bury him next to his deceased best friend Lau Beng Hiong (刘明雄), whose Chinese name he wrote inside Dawn's exercise book before giving it to her.

Nyu wanted her to repeat his requests, and despite her fear of Nyu, Mdm Tang tried to dissuade Nyu from committing suicide. It was only when Nyu pointed the rifle at her that Mdm Tang fled the house with Dawn (who witnessed her parents’ bodies) into a neighbour's house to contact the police.[2] Nyu tried to shoot himself twice but he failed as he did not know how to use the rifle. Frustrated, Nyu fled the bungalow, but not before leaving behind the rifle and stolen ammunition, for fear that Sek would murder more people. He met up with Sek in another safe place that afternoon to divide the loot. Nyu later left Singapore on that night itself for Malaysia using a friend's passport, while Sek remained in Singapore.

Meanwhile, the police had arrived at the bungalow and searched the house for the robbers, but they could only find the bodies. The case was assigned to Inspector P. Sathasivam of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID), who headed the police investigations. The police knew that Tay, a father of eight other adult children (including one foster son) and a grandfather of five grandchildren, was a generous and virtuous businessman with a heart of gold, and knew that he would help ex-convicts to reintegrate into society by providing them work at the factory, hence they ruled out the possibility of a revenge-killing. With Nyu's Malaysian IC and the map drawn by Nyu, which Mdm Tang gave to the police, the police managed to arrest Sek six days later at his elder sister Sek Yoke Mui's flat in Alexandra Road on 29 July 1983. Unable to cope with his guilt, Nyu surrendered himself to the police three days after Sek's arrest and extradited back to Singapore on 3 August 1983. Both men were charged with murder.[3][4][5]

Sek Kim Wah (Traditional Chinese: 薛金華; Simplified Chinese: 薛金华; Pinyin: xuē jīnhuá) is a Singaporean born sometime between 18 March 1964 to 23 July 1964. The details of his early childhood and life before the murders are based on the court testimonies given by his family members and Sek himself. Sek was said to be coming from a broken family, in which he grew up under neglectful parents with an elder brother Sek Kim Siong (born in 1962), an elder sister Sek Yoke Mui (born in 1963) and an unnamed younger sister (born in 1966). His father Sek Yuon Chin was said to be a heavy and compulsive gambler who rarely comes back home, and later left the family to live with a mistress in Ang Mo Kio when Sek was merely 9. Similarly, Sek's mother Hoh Mooi Chai also left the family to have an affair with a married man, with the more aggravating factor being them being moved away from their grandparents after a heated quarrel between their mother and grandparents, leaving the couple's four young children, who were not close to each other, to fend for themselves and resort to stealing to survive. The children had also gone astray in lieu of the lack of proper guidance by their parents and their grandparents (who would be the ones to take the roles to discipline the kids in the absence of the parents prior to their move-out).

Sek, who only attended four years of primary school before dropping out due to financial reasons, was said to be a naughty child when young. His elder sister Sek Yoke Mui said that he was obsessed with Wuxia novels and Kungfu movies in his childhood. He also had the tendency to molest his younger sister's private parts at age 12. Sek was also said to have a liking to injure himself at times, describing it as thrilling. He and his elder brother Kim Siong always get into fights with students while in school, and shared a bad, impulsive temper. There was one occasion when both brothers were chained at home for stealing a bicycle and fighting,[6] and often, there is no communication between parents and children. Eventually, Kim Siong was jailed in a boys' home for theft, and later on a second time for being AWOL during his National Service. It was at this point, Kim Siong claimed, he started to reconsider his life choices and decided to turn over a new leaf and be more mature; as a result, he restarted his education and later found a stable job as an electrician a few years later.[7]

As for the future Andrew Road triple murderer Sek Kim Wah, who became a secret society member at age 13 by joining a gang called "Gi It San", he was sentenced to 4 years' imprisonment in a boys' home in 1979 for theft. He was paroled in 1981 for good behaviour and joined the army a year later to serve his National Service. It was on 30 June 1983 when he first committed murder; he had robbed and killed 42-year-old illegal bookmaker Lim Khee Sin (林庚申) and his 32-year-old bar waitress girlfriend Ong Ah Hong (王亚凤) at somewhere nearby East Coast Park, strangling them in the same way he strangled the three victims at Andrew Road. After killing the couple, he dumped the bodies at Seletar Reservoir dirt track, and even took away Lim's driving license.[8] This case remains unsolved until Sek himself confessed to it after his arrest by the police.

During his time in the boys' home, sometime in 1981, like other inmates, Sek was assigned work, and told to go plant orchids in the garden of one household. That household happened to be that of Robert Tay. He was also assigned to work in Tay's factory temporarily. It was this that made Sek wanting to rob the wealthy businessman, culminating into the brutal triple killings at Andrew Road.

Nyu Kok Meng (Traditional Chinese: 饒國明; Simplified Chinese: 饶国明; Pinyin: ráo guómíng) is a Malaysian born sometime between 24 July 1963 to 23 July 1964. Nyu was the sixth child out of eight children; younger to three sisters and two brothers and elder to a brother and sister. All his elder sisters were married in Singapore and his 62-year-old father worked as a driver in Singapore. His hometown was in Pekan Nanas, Johor.

According to Nyu's 42-year-old mother, her son was originally a well-behaved and helpful child, always work part-time in a rubber plantation while studying in secondary school to provide family expenses. Nyu eventually dropped out of school due to financial difficulties and having no time to study. After this, Nyu went to work in a bakery nearby his hometown and became the caretaker of his boss's children, sending money to his family monthly before he left Malaysia to work as a welder in Singapore in 1981. It was there when Nyu gradually began to go astray, as he began to befriend and interact with secret society members and ignored his family's advices to not do so. One of them would later on become his best friend Lau Beng Hiong, whom Nyu told Mdm Tang he wanted to be buried with on that fateful day of 23 July 1983. Lau, who was 18 when he died, was killed by four members of a rival gang during a gangfight on 22 May 1983, two months before the Andrew Road incident.[9] Nyu, who only met Sek a few days before the Andrew Road case, agreed to take part in the robbery after Sek asked him to do so.

Both Sek Kim Wah and Nyu Kok Meng were initially set to stand trial for murder together. But on 8 July 1985, the prosecution, having gone through the details of the case, decided to withdraw the triple murder charges against Nyu, and only charged him with committing armed robbery with a firearm under the Arms Offences Act, which Nyu pleaded guilty to and convicted of. The next day, Nyu Kok Meng, who was represented by prominent lawyer Leo Fernando, was sentenced to life imprisonment and 6 strokes of the cane by High Court judge Punch Coomaraswamy, who took note of Nyu's remorse, his full cooperation with the police and that he surrendered himself.[10][11]

Since a life sentence under Singapore law at that time was considered as a jail term of 20 years, before the landmark judgement of Abdul Nasir bin Amer Hamsah's appeal on 20 August 1997 (which changed the definition of life imprisonment to a term of incarceration for the rest of a prisoner's natural life with an entitlement for parole after serving at least 20 years), by maintaining good conduct while in prison, Nyu would be released sometime between December 1996 and November 1998 after serving at least two-thirds of his life term (13 years and 4 months), depending on when he started to serve his life sentence.

Regardless, it can be confirmed that since the end of 2005, Nyu Kok Meng was released from jail and presumably returned to Malaysia.

On 22 July 1985, nearly two years after the Andrew Road triple homicide incident, 21-year-old Sek Kim Wah, who was represented by state-assigned defence lawyer Loh Lin Kok, stood trial in the High Court before two High Court judges Lai Kew Chai (who would deliver judgement on child murderer Took Leng How for the high-profile murder of 8-year-old Huang Na 20 years later) and Abdul Wahab Ghows for the murders of Robert Tay, Annie Low and Jovita Virador. Additionally, Sek faced two separate murder charges for the deaths of Lim Khee Sin and Ong Ah Hong at East Coast Park, which he would stand trial for at a later date.[12] The trial attracted much public attention due to the sensational nature of the case, which shook the nation. The prosecution, led by Deputy Public Prosecutors (DPP) Roy Neighbour and Tan Siong Thye, called on Sek's former accomplice Nyu Kok Meng, who agreed to take the stand and testify for the prosecution.[13] Similarly, the two survivors of the Andrew Road case - Dawn Tay and her tutor Mdm Tang So Ha - also took the stand to recount what happened on the day itself.[14][15]

16 other witnesses, including the bank employees of the bank where Sek went to withdraw money with the cheque, also took the stand. Professor Chao Tzee Cheng, the pathologist who examined the bodies of the three victims, was also one of them. Professor Chao testified that both the women died from strangulation, and that they were strangled with great force. He also testified that the reason behind Tay's death was due to a fractured skull he sustained from Sek's repeated strikes on his head. Lily Tay Noi Hiang (unrelated to the Tay family in the Andrew Road case), a 21-year-old lounge hostress from Golden Sultan Lounge and Sek's one-sided girlfriend, was also a witness for the prosecution. She testified to the court that Sek, whom she first met on 14 July 1983, had been boasting to her about not just the murders he committed at Andrew Road, but also the unsolved East Coast Park double murder of both Lim Khee Sin and Ong Ah Hong. He also said to her he wanted to be better than Singapore's most notorious gunman Lim Ban Lim, who was wanted in the 1960s and 1970s for killing a police officer in 1968 and many other crimes but was eventually discovered and gunned down by police in late November 1972.

When Lily Tay asked Sek if he is afraid of killing, he said no as he had killed five people before laughing. She also said that Nyu tried to impress her with shopping and wanting to make her his girlfriend but she refused because she herself already having a boyfriend and to her, Sek was merely a customer.[16][17] Ng Hien Chong, alias Ah Tiong, a bouncer who worked in the same lounge as Lily Tay but quitted the job at the time of Sek's trial, also testified that Sek told him about the five murders he committed, and had found out from Lily Tay that she also received the same information from Sek. Lily Tay had once asked Ng if they should inform the police but Ng declined to do so, stating that Sek could be lying about the killings he claimed to have committed.[18]

Sek Kim Wah took the stand on 26 July 1985. Initially blaming Nyu Kok Meng for killing one of the victims and stated he got no intention to kill,[19] Sek admitted that he did murder all three victims on the stand, but claiming diminished responsibility. When he was asked how he felt when strangling Annie Low, Sek brought up an incident in 1980 or 1981 when he was nearly strangled by someone at the Singapore Boys’ Home until he blacked out. Sek said: “At first I felt discomfort. Then it was very thrilling... as if the lights were being switched on and off.” He also described the feeling as thrilling when he strangled his victims, and stated he enjoyed it. He also said he wanted to electrocute the victims but ended up forgotting to turn on the electricity, and thus he electrocute the goldfishes reared in Tay's bungalow. When asked by Justice Lai why he did that, Sek said he did not know, but said the more he tried everything, the more thrilling. Additionally, he told the court why he killed the victims, because he said Robert Tay recognised his voice and face, which made Sek initially elated at Tay recognising him but eventually it occurred to him that he had to silence the victims.[20] Not only did he recount how he strangled the couple at East Coast Park the month before he killed the three victims at Andrew Road,[21] Sek also said in court that he wanted to be like Rambo, the hero in the film First Blood, who was a good person but was accused as a bad man by the police, with whom he had a showdown with.[22] He even said he wanted to kill at least 15 policemen, due to his hatred towards them.

Sek also brought up his painful, unhappy childhood while putting up his defence, placing the blame on his parents for being not caring and irresponsible, and wholeheartedly blamed them for him becoming the person he is today. He also showed no love or care for his father, and no love for his mother (though he still more or less cared for her well-being). His family members - especially his parents and brother - took the stand and their testimonies had partially corroborated Sek's own account of his childhood. Sek's parents, Sek Yuon Chin and Hoh Mooi Chai said that what Sek said was indeed mostly true, though they added that they still did tell him and their other children to not be bad children, and while testifying in court, they expressed their remorse for not paying more attention to their children's well-being and educating them properly.[23][24]

Sek's siblings and Sek's elder brother in-law Lau Puay Cheow (also spelt Low Puay Cheow) also told the court that they were shocked when they first found out Sek's involvement in the murders he claimed to have committed.[25][26] In addition, Sek's brother Kim Siong stated that Sek deserved the consequences for what he did and should shoulder all the responsibility for his crimes, but he also blamed his parents for their negligence and society for ostracising them. Still, despite all he said, Kim Siong affirmed his love for his brother and parents.[27]

The defence also raised another incident that supposedly pushed Sek over the edge and culminate into the murders he committed. Sek was said to have a one-sided, unrequited love with a coffeeshop owner’s daughter. Even though the girl saw him only as a friend, she would reprimand him whenever he did something wrong. About three days before he killed both Lim Khee Sin and Ong Ah Hong, she sent him a letter which made Sek believed that she had rejected his feelings for her. Sek said this in his own words, "After receiving the letter I had the impression that there was no one to supervise me and I could do whatever I liked. I was frustrated. I like someone to exercise control over me, to care and look after me. But all they are interested in is money. Since everybody is busy about money, I would get it by hook or by crook and the more the merrier."[28]

Sek Kim Wah's lawyer, Loh Lin Kok, called upon two psychiatric experts, Australian psychiatrist Dr. John Ellard and notable Singaporean psychiatrist Dr. Wong Yip Chong (who acted as expert witness to support the defence of diminished responsibility for notorious child killer Adrian Lim) to testify for Sek in support of his defence of diminished responsibility. Dr Ellard, who first examined Sek, stated that he was of the opinion that from Sek's lack of remorse towards his crimes and his painful childhood and many other factors, Sek was suffering from anti-social personality disorder. Dr. Wong, who examined Sek later, stated that he agreed with Dr. Ellard's report of Sek's illness, though he added that he felt that Sek was suffering from psychopathic personality disorder, with his unhappy childhood as the main contributing factor, which was aggravated by Sek's high-intelligence IQ of 113.[29]

In rebuttal, the prosecution called upon government psychiatrist Dr. Chew Seck Kee, who testified that Sek was not suffering from any mental disorders, as Sek was rational and relevant, able to give a clear account of himself and his crimes, and as he himself said, he had to kill his victims to prevent them from recognising him and reporting him, which showed that Sek, whom he described as "cold-blooded and cruel", was clearly and fully aware of himself and in full control of his actions. Additionally, Dr. Chew also said that Sek, in fact, did expressed some degree of remorse over his actions but feeling that it was too late for regrets.[30] In addition, the prosecution also proven that Sek's account of his incident of being strangled at the boys' homes was not true - Sek had in fact fabricated that story to support his defence of diminished responsibility.

On 14 August 1985, after hearing the closing submissions from the defence and the prosecution, the two judges - Justice Lai Kew Chai and Justice Abdul Wahab Ghows - decided on their final verdict, with Justice Lai delivering the judgement. In their written verdict, Justice Lai stated that they both found Sek Kim Wah not of unsound mind at the time of the murders, based on their review of the evidence presented to them. They found that Sek had killed Robert Tay, Annie Low and Jovita Virador with the intention to cause death. Hence, they rejected Sek's defence of diminished responsibility and found him guilty of all the three murders at Andrew Road, convict him and sentenced him to death, endng the 17-day long trial of Sek Kim Wah. Under Singapore law at that time, the crime of murder carries a mandatory sentence of death by long drop hanging (the standard execution method which Singapore adopts till today). Upon hearing that he would be hanged, Sek smiled and thanked the judges in Cantonese, stating that he wanted to die in the gallows, saying that it would be thrilling. None of Sek's family members were present at the hearing to hear the sentence.[31][32]

After his conviction and sentencing, Sek Kim Wah filed an appeal against his conviction and sentence. It took more than a year when on 16 March 1987, 22-year-old Sek Kim Wah's appeal was finally brought before the Court of Appeal and heard by three judges - Chief Justice Wee Chong Jin, High Court judge A. P. Rajah and Judicial Commissioner Chan Sek Keong. In the appeal, Sek's lawyer Loh Lin Kok argued that the two judges in Sek's original trial had erred in rejecting Sek's claim of diminished responsibility and the combined evidence of both Dr John Ellard and Dr Wong Yip Chong on Sek's testimony, along with its significance. Mr Loh also brought up the fact mentioned by the two judges that the first psychiatric witness Dr Ellard presented his opinion through "Australian spectacles" when the symptoms displayed by patients of personality disorders are universally relatively similar, a fact which the two judges had erred in finding, Mr Loh said.

Mr Loh further argued in the appeal that the two judges did not state, even on the balance of probabilities, whether they accepted the prosecution's psychiatric expert witness Dr Chew Seck Kee's evidence and findings against those of the two defence psychiatrists. He even pointed out that the judges did not rely much on the evidence of Dr Wong that Sek was also suffering from enuresis, up till the age of 16, which was a symptom of personality disorder (a fact presented by Dr Wong in the original trial).[33]

After hearing the appeal, a day later, on 17 March 1987, the three-judge Court of Appeal released their verdict, with Chief Justice Wee Chong Jin verbally reading it out. The three judges dismissed Sek Kim Wah's appeal and upheld both the conviction and sentence of the then-22-year-old youth. Chief Justice Wee pointed out that whatever method Dr Ellard used to make his medical findings, it is based on whatever facts that were presented to him; it could be that the doctor had given all the facts he knew of in his testimony but some of them turn out to be untrue. The trial judges, in their original verdict, had rejected the defence's arguments that the findings of the psychiatrists are based on reliable facts. "It was a matter for the trial judges to decide after assessing the facts and medical evidence whether the facts the psychiatrists relied upon were true." said the Chief Justice. He also cited that this was the same reason why the trial judges reject Dr Wong's testimony as well. The court also told Mr Loh that they could not accept his assertion that Sek was mentally abnormal despite the "great perseverance" in making his arguments. In dismissing the appeal, the final words from the Chief Justice was, "We are not persuaded at all that the trial judges were not entitled to make the finding they did." Sek was reportedly calm throughout the appeal process and the reading of the Court of Appeal's judgement.[34][35]

Eventually, on 9 December 1988, more than five years after the Andrew Road murders, as well as the unrelated East Coast Park double murder case, 24-year-old Sek Kim Wah was hanged in the state gallows of Changi Prison for the murders of his five victims. Sek's execution came only two weeks after the hanging of the three convicted child murderers (Adrian Lim, Catherine Tan Mui Choo and Hoe Kah Hong) of the notorious 1981 Toa Payoh ritual murders case on 25 November of that same year he was hanged. The executioner who carried out Sek's hanging was veteran hangman Darshan Singh.[36]

Sek's body was later cremated at Mount Vernon Crematorium. Despite Sek's final wish to have his ashes scattered into the sea, they were stored in an urn in Siong Lim Temple at Toa Payoh, in which a simple funeral was held for Sek in accordance to Taoist practices. The funeral was attended by Sek's parents and siblings.[37]

Approximately 20 years after the occurrence of the Andrew Road case, this case was re-enacted in a Singaporean crime show True Files, which consist of five seasons and a total of 62 episodes. The re-enactment was first broadcast as the second episode of the show's second season on 2 September 2003. The show is currently viewable via meWATCH since 5 February 2016.

In the episode broadcasting the re-enactment, the former lawyers of both Sek Kim Wah and Nyu Kok Meng - Loh Lin Kok (Sek's lawyer) and Leo Fernando (Nyu's lawyer) - appeared on-screen to be interviewed. Fernando, who appeared on the episode first, stated that he believed there was no common intention between his client and Sek to commit the three murders at Andrew Road despite their plan to rob the Tay family. He said that when both the survivors Dawn Tay and the tutor Tang So Ha came to the court to give their accounts of what happened, they expressed their gratitude to his client (Nyu) for shielding them from Sek's murderous rampage. Loh, who appeared later, stated that his client (Sek), throughout the court proceeedings, did not show any tinge of remorse at all for his actions. He, in his opinion, called his client the "number one killer" in the history of Singapore in respect to all the killings he committed.[38]

The murders at Andrew Road was considered as a notable crime that shook Singapore. In July 2015, Singapore's national daily newspaper The Straits Times published a e-book titled Guilty As Charged: 25 Crimes That Have Shaken Singapore Since 1965, which included the Andrew Road triple murder case 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 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 the bookshelves in end-June 2017. The paperback edition first entered the ST bestseller list on 8 August 2017, a month after its publication.[39][40][41]