Murder of Frankie Tan

At around 2.15 in the morning of 25 October 1984, after some shopping and a session of mahjong with her friends, 50-year-old married housewife Lee Chee Poh (Traditional Chinese: 李枝寶; Simplified Chinese: 李枝宝; Pinyin: lǐ zhībǎo), also known as Rose Lee, returned home. As she entered through the front door of her Laguna Park flat, she would make a shocking discovery. As she entered the study room of her banker husband Tan Tik Siah (Traditional Chinese: 陳鐵城; Simplified Chinese: 陈铁城; Pinyin: chén tǐechéng), also known as Frankie Tan, Lee was shocked to see her 39-year-old husband lying there dead with a nylon rope around his neck, and bruises on his face and body. Full of grief and distraught at the sight of her husband's dead body, Lee managed to wake up her neighbour and seek help. The police were contacted and they arrived at the scene. They investigated and found no signs of a forced entry or no signs of anything missing from the flat.[2] An autopsy by forensic pathologist Dr Clarence Tan (unrelated to the victim Tan Tik Siah) later showed that the cause of Tan's death was asyphyxia by strangulation; he died sometime between 8pm to 10pm the night before on 24 October 1984. The rope was uniformly tied around Tan's neck six times. From the manner of Tan's injuries, Dr Clarence Tan believed that there were at least two people involved in the murder of Tan, who was then a vice-president and regional treasurer of American Express International Banking Corporation (or simply known as Amex).[3]

The case was classified as murder. The case was assigned to Inspector Teo Cheow Beng of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID), who headed the police investigations. The murdered victim's wife, Lee Chee Poh, was brought into the CID for questioning that very night. Lee, who was hysterical and full of remorse, confessed to her police interrogators that in fact, she was a part of a premeditated plot to murder her husband, and implicated her 41-year-old brother-in-law Vasavan Sathiadew in the plot. Vasavan, who was the adoptive elder brother of Tan Tik Siah (with whom he was close to), was soon arrested at the Ang Mo Kio flat of Mdm Sim, the birth mother of Tan, and also Vasavan's adoptive mother. Vasavan, who grew up in a Chinese family since 1959 and thus adopted both a Chinese name, Tan Kim Siah (Traditional Chinese: 陳金城; Simplified Chinese: 陈金城; Pinyin: chén jīnchéng), and an English name, Augustine, told police that he had hired and paid three Thai men to go with him to assault and murder his foster brother due to Tan having an affair with Amnoi, Vasavan's Thai wife, with whom Vasavan had a son (born in 1977) and daughter (born in 1969).[4]

With Vasavan's statements, the police officers went to a construction site where Vasavan worked as a foreman, and arrested a Thai construction worker, 42-year-old Phan Khenapim, who came from Northern Thailand and worked in Singapore since 1981. Phan was said to be one of the Thai accomplices who murdered Tan. Another Thai worker from another construction site, 21-year-old Wan Phatong, was also arrested for his alleged involvement in the murder. A third Thai accomplice, Buakkan Vajjarin, more commonly referred to as Ah Poo, was never caught. All four arrested were charged with murder.[5][6]

On 17 October 1988, Lee Chee Poh stood trial alone for her abetment of her husband's murder, represented by lawyer Loh Lin Kok (who was the former lawyer of the 1983 Andrew Road triple murderer Sek Kim Wah). By then, the prosecution agreed to, on account of Lee's full cooperation with the police and remorse over her husband's death, reduce Lee's charge of abetment of murder to one of abetment of culpable homicide not amounting to murder. Lee pleaded guilty and was convicted of the reduced charge. At the trial, it was then a story of how a budding romance ended in tragedy was told in the High Court.

Lee Chee Poh, who came from Malacca, Malaysia to Singapore for a better life, first met Tan Tik Siah sometime in the early or mid-1960s at a cabaret where she had been working for the past 10 years. Despite their 11-year age difference, Lee became romantically involved with Tan, and in 1966, she forked out her earnings to allow Tan to go to night school, where he graduated and completed his secondary school education. The couple were married in 1969, and they resided in Tan's mother's kampong house in Potong Pasir.

The next year, the couple moved into a two-room HDB flat in Jalan Toa Payoh; by then, Tan was employed in the Amex bank. At some point in the early 1970s, Tan was embroiled in stock market difficulties, and in order to help her husband, Lee even raised $20,000 out of her jewellery and savings. The couple later moved to their current home in a flat in Laguna Park in 1975. They had no children.

In early 1981, it was at that point when Lee Chee Poh's life would change forever. She picked up a call from a distressed Vasavan Sathiadew, who informed her of a shocking event that he discovered from his wife Amnoi. Lee was full of disbelief when she heard Vasavan telling her that Amnoi had confessed to him earlier on that she, in fact, had been sleeping with Lee's husband Tan Tik Siah for 11 years since their 1969 marriage. After cutting the call, Lee questioned her husband if it was true; Tan said yes, but defensively said that Amnoi seduced him first. It was also came to light that Tan was also outside philandering for other women during their years of marriage, and in addition to his adoptive brother Vasavan's wife, he had also have illicit affairs with the wives of his two other unnamed brothers, and his secretary.

As an aftermath of this incident, it was then Tan began to grow more unfaithful to his wife, and more abusive towards her. Two years before his violent death, Tan began to bring back home a 25-year-old divorcee named Thereisa Lee (unrelated to Lee Chee Poh), and let her live with them. After bringing the mistress back home, every night, Tan told Lee (his wife) to sleep in another bedroom while he shared both their bedroom with Thereisa Lee; by then he had attained a high-ranking position in the bank. He also later brought both Lee and his mistress overseas to Japan and the USA to allow Lee to get to know the mistress better and accept her as part of the family. During that period, he fathered a son with Thereisa Lee, whom he began to introduce to people as his wife. Tan also wanted Thereisa Lee and the unnamed son to live with him so that he can take care of them as well. Lee had long resigned herself to her husband's philandering even before the appearance of Thereisa Lee, and despite the frequent abuses which Tan brought upon her, Lee still loved him and hoped that he could stop ill-treating her.[7]

Finally, one day in 1984, Tan told Lee, his wife of 15 years, that he wanted a divorce. Despite consenting to it, Lee asked the ownership of their Laguna Park flat be given to her should the divorce be granted and finalized. Tan rejected. At the same time, Vasavan, who thirsted for revenge on Tan, who he fell out with, for the earlier adulterous affair between him and Amnoi, had been persuading Lee to have her husband dead since it was for certain that Tan will never be nice to her and go back to her. Although she schemed with Vasavan to use black magic to kill Tan for his repeated infidelity and abuse, Lee maintained her love for her husband and never wanted him to die; in her heart, she still held on to the hope of her husband going back to her. Sadly, this was not to be.

Two days before the fateful night on 24 October 1984, when Lee Chee Poh went to the airport to fetch her husband, Tan Tik Siah once again abused and ill-treated her, this time very badly, even treating her as a chauffeur instead of as his wife. This was the final straw. Seeing how incorrigible and unrepentant her husband had become, Lee's endurance has finally snapped and her fragile hope was gone. Lamentably, she consented to Vasavan's plot to murder her husband and handed him the spare keys to their flat, and gave him $4,500 as payment to those whom Vasavan would hire to murder Tan. Vasavan even assured her that her husband's death would look natural with black magic. Still, despite so, Lee had never wanted her husband to die all along and she would have called off the murder had Tan treated her nicely; she also wanted to dissuade Vasavan from killing Tan on the day of the murder itself but could not reach him by phone.[8][9]

On 17 October 1989, the same date of her conviction by the High Court, High Court Judge Punch Coomaraswamy sentenced 54-year-old Lee Chee Poh to 7 years' imprisonment. Additionally, the 7-year-imprisonment sentence was backdated to 26 October 1984, the date of Lee's remand; with one-third remission for good behaviour, Lee would effectively only need to serve 4 years and 8 months. Since she served with good behaviour, and the sentence being backdated to 4 years earlier, Lee would be released 8 months later in June 1989.

During sentencing, Justice Coomaraswamy took into consideration the tragic life which Lee had gone through with her abusive marriage. He expressed his sympathy to Lee for her plight. In his own words while delivering the judgement, Justice Coomaraswamy said to Lee, "That he (Tan Tik Siah) treated you cruelly in bringing a mistress (Thereisa Lee) home from time to time and making you sleep in another bedroom proves him to be an extremely callous person. I think you had put up with a lot." Lee reportedly broke down as she received the sentence.[10]

However, the murder charges against Lee's brother-in-law Vasavan Sathiadew, and the two of Vasavan's three Thai accomplices Phan Khenapim and Wan Phatong remained. As the crime of murder under Singapore law carries the mandatory death penalty, should they be found guilty, all three men would be sentenced to death. Lee Chee Poh later became the prosecution's key witness against the three men, who all stood trial a month after her release.[11][12]

The trial of Vasavan Sathiadew and his two Thai accomplices Phan Khenapim and Wan Phatong began on 3 July 1989. All three men stood trial before two High Court judges - Judicial Commissioner Joseph Grimberg and Justice T. S. Sinnathuray (he was one of the two judges who sentenced the three child killers of the 1981 Toa Payoh Ritual Murders to death 6 years earlier) - in the High Court of Singapore. Prominent lawyer Leo Fernando was assigned to defend Vasavan, and Fernando was also assisted by another lawyer Remesha Pillai throughout the trial. Two other lawyers, Lim Choon Mong (the father of Singaporean opposition politician Slyvia Lim of the Workers' Party) and V. C. S. Vardan, were also assigned to defend Phan and Wan respectively.[13] Till then, the police were still tracing the whereabouts of the missing Ah Poo, the third and last Thai accomplice.

The prosecution's case were largely based on the police statements given by the three men, and also the testimony of Lee Chee Poh, who took the stand as the prosecution's key witness. On the stand, while giving her testimony, she was extensively cross-examined by the three men's lawyers. When cross-examined by Fernando, Lee disagreed with Fernando's claim that there was never any plot to murder her husband Tan Tik Siah, but just to beat him up. She did, however, agreed that till then, there was no agreement to kill her husband in any other way other than black magic, and she also told the court that Vasavan told her that the black magic would be powerful and make the death look natural. When she was cross-examined by Mr Lim (Phan's lawyer) and Mr Vardan (Wan's lawyer) respectively, Lee agreed that all along, she never wanted her husband to die. She disagreed with Mr Lim's suggestion that she was compelled into testifying against the three men in the murder trial after the prosecution reduced her charge while conceding with Mr Vardan's suggestion that Tan meant a lot to her and she was being totally dependent on him, which was why she could not likely want to kill her "golden goose". Not only that, during her cross-examination by Mr Lim, Lee said that even before the discovery of her husband's illicit affair with Thereisa Lee, she was already aware of his womanising and his affairs with all his three sister-in-laws (including Vasavan's wife Amnoi) and secretary. When asked if she ever tried to put a stop to it or object to these affairs, she answered that she could not do anything about it, as her husband was "such a person".[14][15][16]

Inspector Lim Cheow Beng also took the stand. He read out the statements from Vasavan, in which Vasavan had admitted to the conspiracy with Lee to murder Tan, hiring and pay the three Thais to help him commit the murder, and buying the 10m long nylon rope to kill Tan while denying that he was involved in the grievous assault and murder of Tan despite being at the scene (however, Wan's statement said that Vasavan was involved in the attack). However, through his lawyer, Vasavan challenged the validity of the statements, claiming that they were not given voluntarily. Similarly, Phan and Wan also claimed that their statements were not given voluntarily. Phan said that he was illiterate and could not understand the charge he was facing or what he was charged with until the beginning of the trial; he claimed that he completely could not understand the Thai interpreter because he was illiterate and being from a remote village in Northern Thailand, where a different dialect was used. He even said that he was forced to make the statements after being assaulted by the police interrogators during questioning.

After a lengthy trial-within-a-trial, the two judges admitted the oral statements of all three men as evidence. They also accept the written statements of Wan and Vasavan, but reject Phan's written statements in view of his illiteracy.[17][18][19][20]

When it comes to the defendants to give their testimonies to the court, all three accused put up a common defence - they did not deny being at the flat. They said that they only intended to beat up Tan Tik Siah, and all pinpointed the missing Ah Poo as the sole member of the four who strangled Tan to death with the rope procured by Vasavan. Despite giving a common defence, they gave three different versions of what exactly happened at the flat.

Phan was the first of the three to go onto the stand to testify. Phan said that Vasavan asked him to help assault a Chinese man who molested his daughter. He said that no monetary terms were discussed. According to Phan, on that night itself, he brought along both Ah Poo and Wan after agreeing with Vasavan to assist him in the assault. After arriving at Tan's flat, Phan said all four of them hid in Tan's bedroom and waited in ambush until Tan arrived home. Ah Poo was the first to attack Tan in his study room, followed by Phan and Vasavan, and finally Wan. Later, after he assaulted Tan, Phan said he left the room out of increasing fear to join Wan, who left the room first. He said that Vasavan also followed them. Ah Poo was the last to leave the room.

Wan's testimony was largely similar to Phan's. He said that when he first met Vasavan for drinks with Phan and Ah Poo, he did not know about their plans to assault Tan, and simply followed the others till they reached Tan's flat. He said that it was only then they arrived and entered the apartment he was informed that they were going to beat up Tan. Wan said that he reluctantly agreed to help since he had followed them. He said Ah Poo first attacked Tan before Phan and Vasavan joined in. Wan, who was the last to join, said that he was shocked and scared after witnessing the assault. For this, he left the room first, and he was followed by Phan and later Vasavan. Similar to Phan's testimony, Wan said that Ah Poo was the last to leave the room and had stayed in the room the longest. In the lift on the way down, Wan said that Vasavan paid the three of them $1,000 each; he said he initially did not accept the money but Ah Poo insisted and shoved it into his hand.[21]

Vasavan was the last of the accused to go onto the stand. Vasavan not only denied that he had any motive or intention to murder Tan, he claimed to be suffering from acute severe reactive depression. Veronica Sathiadew, Vasavan's 20-year-old daughter, corroborated this evidence, saying that ever since her mother's affair with her uncle Tan Tik Siah came to light, her father became very reserved and locked himself in his room. There were also frequent quarrels between her parents, according to Veronica, who also added that her father would throw things around and even slapped her mother. It is not known if Vasavan's unnamed son went to court to testify for his father. It was only then a sense of peace returned to the family when Vasavan began going to church, but the arguments began again in early 1984 when Lee Chee Poh telephoned him frequently about his and her marital issues.[22] Dr Wong Yip Chong, a notable psychiatrist, testified on the stand to support Vasavan's defence of diminshed responsibility, stating that Vasavan was suffering from an abnormality of mind at the time of the crime. However, Dr Wong told the court that he did not believe his patient Vasavan when he said his intention was just to beat up, not kill, Tan Tik Siah. When asked by one of the two judges, Justice Sinnathuray if he had came across a case or medical evidence of diminished responsibility being raised when the accused was not present at the actual killing, Dr Wong conceded that he had not.[23]

Vasavan also told the court of how he came to know about the affair, as well as some aspects of his early life after his adoption and before the devastating events. He said that in 1959, when he was drove out of the house by his birth father, he was adopted by Mdm Sim (Tan's biological mother), who raised him as her own. For this, he grew attached to his foster mother and still loved her even till now. He also grew close to the three Tan brothers, especially with Tan Tik Siah, with whom he was closer than brothers, deeply loved each other, wore the same clothes that matched, and even joining the army together in the same year of 1963 before Vasavan himself left to pursue a freelance singing career, which brought him to Sabah and Bangkok. During his time as a singer, he first met Amnoi in Bangkok before marrying her in August 1968. Upon his return to Singapore, Vasavan joined the Taylor Woodrow as a foreman in a construction site in 1970; he left the company in 1974 before he re-joined two years later.

He said that in one particular night, when he showed his wife the family album and photographs of the victim Tan Tik Siah, Vasavan asked his wife if his foster brother was handsome; it was then he realised something was amiss when he heard Amnoi answering to him that Tan looked ugly and was more uglier without his pants on when he slept with her, and he discovered his wife's 11-year-long affair with Tan after further questioning. Amnoi, who denied that she had an affair while testifying in court, told Vasavan that night she did so because of a wife-swopping arrangement which Tan told her about, an arrangement Tan claimed to have made with Vasavan. Vasavan, who in fact did not have any sexual encounter with his sister-in-law and never made such an arrangement with Tan, felt betrayed and deceived about it and confronted Tan (who denied the affair) about it. This led to the deterioration of the brothers' relationship and that of Vasavan and his wife, and Vasavan said that he felt that his whole world had crumbled and could see his wife and Tan on bed together, having sex, which made him see Tan as a "desperately indecent sex maniac". He not only argued with Amnoi frequently, he became suspicious of her movements and also contemplated suicide twice in the first three months after discovering Tan's treachery.[24][25]

Vasavan additionally denied that he first suggested to Lee to kill her husband or using black magic to kill Tan. He insisted that he had no intention to cause Tan's death and only told the three Thais, whom he recruited, to beat up Tan and not to kill him. He also said he did not buy the rope used to strangle Tan to death beforehand and said he did so at the spur of the moment (for the purpose to tie up Tan before assaulting him instead of strangulation). He said that he did not conspire with Lee or the others to kill Tan, and only told the Thais to help him beat up Tan under the pretext of his daughter being molested by a man, whom he did not name but pointed out as Tan. When cross-examined by the lawyers of Phan and Wan, he said the meeting with Phan was not pre-arranged and the plan to buy the rope was not carried out before 24 October 1984.[26][27]

When cross-examined by Deputy Public Prosecutor (DPP) Bala Reddy, who led the prosecuting team, Vasavan denied the fact that he confessed to the police about his plan to kill Tan when DPP Reddy pointed out what he said in his oral and police statements. He insisted that he only wanted to beat up the victim and not to cause death. He denied any part in the killing and reiterated his denial of his motive to murder Tan to avenge himself for the adultery between Tan and Amnoi.[28]

The trial lasted for 45 days. Judgement was reserved until 6 October 1989.[29]

On 6 October 1989, nearly 5 years after the murder of Tan Tik Siah, the High Court was ready with the verdict, with Judicial Commissioner (JC) Joseph Grimberg delivering the verdict. In their 82-page judgement, which took 90 minutes to read, both JC Grimberg and Justice Sinnathuray found all the three men guilty of murder and sentenced them to death.

JC Grimberg said in court that from their determination, there was no doubt that all the three men, together with the missing Ah Poo, had a common intention to attack and strangle Tan and all had done so in Tan's study. They rejected the defences of all three men that they had only intend to beat up Tan and not to kill. In his own words, JC Grimberg said, "At some stage, one of the assailants sat upon Tan's chest, and as he struggled and fought back, a rope procured by Vasavan was double looped round his neck three times and pulled extremely tight by at least two, probably by all four, of the attackers, and secured in a tight knot. The consequent intense constricting force caused fractures to the horns of Tan's thyroid cartilage, bringing about Tan's death by asphyxia, within two or three minutes", citing the autopsy report by the pathologist Clarence Tan.

JC Grimberg also said they did not believe that Vasavan was indeed suffering from any depression at the time of the murder. They also said that in accordance to the plan and his awareness of Tan's martial arts knowledge and physical strength, Vasavan had hired the three Thais to do the job. They also pointed that after they murdered Tan, Vasavan had paid the Thais $1,000 each for their completion of the task, and even further arranged for an additional payment of $1,500 to Phan, who was set to leave Singapore for Thailand shortly after the crime, before their arrests. Even though they regarded her as an accomplice, the judges accepted Lee Chee Poh as a truthful witness and accepted her testimony against her brother-in-law and the two Thais.

As the death sentence was passed upon them in a packed courtroom, both Vasavan and Phan were reportedly calm while Wan wiped his tears. Vasavan's daughter Veronica broke down and wept after seeing her father being sentenced to death. It is not known whether the other members of the Tan family, Lee Chee Poh, Tan's mistress Thereisa Lee, or the families of Phan and Wan were present at the courtroom when the sentence was passed.[30][31]