Andrew Road triple murder

The robbery was committed by two young men, Sek Kim Wah and Nyu Kok Meng, armed with a rifle and knife.

Eventually both were arrested, with Sek charged with murder and hanged while Nyu, who did not take part in the killings, receiving a life sentence and caning for armed robbery.

One of the men forced Dawn to call her father, who was in the back garden; Robert Tay was lured into the room and tied up as well.

After gagging the victims and taking Tay, Low, and Jovita into separate rooms, the robbers continued to ransack the house.

After being alerted by the thumping sounds in the house and witnessing Sek's actions, Nyu armed himself with the rifle and locked himself in the room with Dawn and her tutor, intending to protect the surviving hostages.

He drew a map of the area where Sek lived in on an envelope and gave it to Tang, who was afraid that Nyu still might harm her and her student and secretly armed herself with a small knife.

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.

Frustrated, Nyu fled the bungalow, but not before leaving behind the rifle and stolen ammunition, for fear that Sek would murder more people.

The police knew that Tay, a father of eight adult children (including one foster son) and a grandfather of five grandchildren, had a reputation of being a generous and virtuous businessman who had helped ex-convicts to reintegrate into society by providing them work at the factory, hence they ruled out the possibility of a revenge killing.

Unable to cope with his guilt, Nyu surrendered himself to the police three days after Sek's arrest and was extradited back to Singapore on 3 August 1983.

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.

[6] On the other hand, Sek Kim Wah, who became a secret society member at age 13 by joining a gang called "Gi It San", was sentenced to 4 years in a boys' home in 1979 for theft.

It was on 30 June 1983 when he first committed murder: he robbed and killed 42-year-old illegal bookmaker Lim Khee Sin (Chinese: 林庚申) and his 32-year-old bar waitress girlfriend Ong Ah Hong (Chinese: 王亚凤) somewhere in East Coast Park, strangling them in the same way he strangled the victims at Andrew Road.

According to Nyu's 42-year-old mother, her son was originally a well-behaved and helpful child, always working part-time in a rubber plantation while studying in secondary school to provide money for the family.

Additionally, Sek faced two separate murder charges for the deaths of Lim Khee Sin and Ong Ah Hong, for which he would stand trial at a later date.

Professor Chao Tzee Cheng, the pathologist who examined the bodies of the three victims, testified that both women died from strangulation, and that they had been strangled with great force.

[11][12] Ng Hien Chong, alias Ah Tiong, a bouncer who had worked in the same lounge as Lily Tay, also testified that Sek had told him about the five murders he committed.

About three days before he killed Lim Khee Sin and Ong Ah Hong, she had sent him a letter which made Sek believe that she had rejected his feelings for her.

[4] Sek Kim Wah's lawyer, Loh Lin Kok, called upon two psychiatric experts, Australian psychiatrist Dr. John Ellard and noted 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.

On 14 August 1985, after hearing the closing submissions from the defence and the prosecution, the two judges gave 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.

Upon hearing that he would be hanged, Sek smiled and thanked the judges in Cantonese, stating that he wanted to die in the gallows, and saying that it would be thrilling.

It took more than a year before 22-year-old Sek Kim Wah's appeal was finally brought before the Court of Appeal on 16 March 1987 and heard by three judges - Chief Justice Wee Chong Jin, High Court judge A. P. Rajah and Judicial Commissioner Chan Sek Keong.

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.

The trial judges, in their original verdict, had rejected the defence's arguments that the findings of the psychiatrists were based on reliable facts.

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."

[24] Approximately 20 years after the Andrew Road case, it was re-enacted on a Singaporean crime show True Files, first broadcast on 2 September 2003.

The episode covers the cases, as well as the experts' opinion on the mind of Sek, whom they considered as Singapore's first serial killer in legal history.

The paperback edition of the book was published in June 2017 and first entered the ST bestseller list on 8 August 2017, a month after publication.