On 21 March 2016, 28-year-old Zhang Huaxiang (Chinese: 张花香; 6 November 1987 – 21 March 2016), a China-born nurse working in Singapore, was murdered by her close male friend Boh Soon Ho (Chinese: 卜顺和; pinyin: Bǔ Shǔnhé), a Malaysian working as a cafeteria worker in Singapore.
After the killing, Boh escaped to his native state of Melaka before his arrest two weeks later, and he was extradited to Singapore to face charges of murder, dishonestly misappropriating Zhang's belongings and having sex on her corpse.
[2] On 22 March 2016, the owner of a flat at Circuit Road discovered the dead body of a young woman inside the rented bedroom of one of his tenants.
At the time of the discovery, Boh, who was a Singapore permanent resident, had left for Malaysia, claiming he would be going back to open a business and would not rent his room.
The landlord informed the police and helped them keep tabs of his messages and phone calls made between him and Boh Soon Ho, who later told him he was in his hometown at the Malaysian state of Melaka, and lived at a hotel.
On 4 April 2016, two weeks after the murder of Zhang Huaxiang, her killer – 47-year-old Boh Soon Ho – was arrested at a restaurant in Melaka, where he was having dinner before the Malaysian police officers ambushed and captured him.
[14][7] Upon hearing that Boh was arrested for the murder of their elder daughter, Zhang's parents expressed to the Chinese newspaper Lianhe Zaobao that the whole family and their relatives in China found closure with Boh being brought to justice, and they stated with hope that Zhang would rest in peace with the assurance that her killer was caught.
It was revealed that both of them first met in 2011 or 2012 when they both worked at the cafeteria at Marina Bay Sands integrated resort, and Zhang was at that time, studying a nursing course under a scholarship.
Zhang eventually left her part-time cafeteria job to become a nurse, but she and Boh continued their friendship with one another, and they often going out for meals or watching movies together.
[17] The Circuit Road murder trial began at the High Court on 18 September 2019, with both the leading criminal lawyer Eugene Thuraisingam and his colleague Chooi Jing Yen representing Boh Soon Ho, who was then 51 years old.
High Court Judge Pang Khang Chau was assigned to hear the case, and the prosecution – consisting of Wong Kok Weng and Joshua Chua – proceeded with the charge of murder by intentionally causing a bodily injury that could lead to death in the ordinary cause of nature.
[19] This sighting also made Boh angered at how Zhang did not reciprocate his feelings after thinking of the huge sum of money he spent on her meals and gambling.
The prosecution's psychiatrist, Dr Stephen Phang of the Institute of Mental Health, revealed in his report that Boh was not suffering from a mental disorder that diminished his responsibility and there was no grave and sudden provocation, based on his decision to attempt to dispose of the corpse and prepare to escape from Singapore, which demonstrated his coolness and significant amount of self-control over his actions.
[26][27] On 7 February 2020, the trial judge Pang Khang Chau found Boh guilty of murder for the fatal strangulation of Zhang Huaxiang.
Justice Pang noted that based on the sentencing principles inherited from the Kho Jabing case, and according to the prosecution's submissions, Boh did not exhibit a blatant disregard for human life or viciousness when he strangled Zhang to death, and he did not premeditate the murder despite having ample motive by jealousy to commit the killing.
They additionally rejected the original trial judge's finding that Boh was indeed provoked, albeit not gravely or lost his self-control in killing Zhang Huaxiang.
He also cited a psychiatric report which the judges referred to, in the aftermath of the murder, some aspects of Boh's conduct at that time, such as fleeing Singapore and went into hiding in his hometown in Melaka, reflected a state of mind that was "unfettered by any loss of self-control or impulse control".