Chee, who was allegedly responsible for Neo's fatal fall, was charged with murder, an offence which warranted the death penalty within Singapore's jurisdiction.
Shortly after her fall, Neo's parents and tenant managed to stop Chee from escaping and she was subsequently arrested by police after the authorities were contacted.
[9] On 8 October 2004, a day after her arrest, Constance Chee was charged with attempted murder, an offense punishable by either life in prison or up to twenty years in jail.
[21] The murder of Sindee Neo, which brought shock to the whole nation, was one of the high-profile killings of children that happened in Singapore in the year 2004.
[24] The trial of Constance Chee Cheong Hin began at the High Court on 1 August 2005,[25] less than a year after Sindee Neo was murdered.
Chee was represented by veteran criminal lawyer Subhas Anandan and his two associates Anand Nalachandran and Sunil Sudheesan, while the prosecution was led by Wong Kok Weng.
Dr Stephen Phang, a government psychiatrist, found that Chee was suffering from schizophrenia, and it also substantially impaired her mental responsibility at the time she killed Sindee Neo.
[27][28] Not only that, the prosecution also brought up a second charge of wrongful abduction of a child from her legal guardianship, which carries the maximum penalty of ten years' imprisonment under Section 363 of the Penal Code.
In description, three bags of pork weighing 25 kg and packed with jointed sections to represent the head and limbs were used to simulate the child's weight and body.
With the assistance of a female police officer whose weight and height was similar to Chee, Dr Tay tested the fall of the bags by both tipping over and throwing from the fourth, sixth and tenth storeys.
[31] On the other hand, the defence's medical expert Dr Prakash Thamburaja, an associate professor from the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the National University of Singapore (NUS), contended that Neo died from a fall rather than it being the result of Chee's actions.
[40] Dr Stephen Phang, who represented the prosecution, submitted a new medical report, which contained his opinion that based on Chee's condition, she should be isolated from society as long as possible for the protection of the public and herself.
Having taken into consideration these above factors, Justice Rajah decided to err on the side of leniency and chose to not conform to the prosecution's submission and Dr Phang's opinion.
[44] Anandan stated that from this instance, Justice Rajah received the respect of the legal community being a "courageous judge who knew the meaning of compassion" despite his short tenure on the Bench.
[48] The ruling in Constance Chee's case was a significant one due to the need for judges to be more flexible in their modes of sentencing towards mentally ill offenders based on their individual conditions.
[60] Assistant Superintendent of Police Khamisah Talip, aged 42 in 2014, recalled the case ten years after she first investigated the death of Sindee Neo.