On 21 June 1969, inside a flat at Bukit Merah, 17-year-old Kwong Sau Lan (江秀兰 Jiāng Xìulán) was stabbed to death by 19-year-old Chow Kim Hoong (周剑雄 Zhōu Jiànxióng), the brother of her fiancé.

Chow Kim Hoong, the younger of two sons, was born in Ipoh, Perak, Malaya (present-day Malaysia) in 1950, but he was stateless as of 1969 when he committed the murder of Kwong, although he still remained living in Singapore with his family.

Chow worked various jobs, such as a hawker assistant, plumber and odd-job labourer, but he was jobless as of the time he committed the murder.

[6] As the confrontation and argument grew intense, Chow grabbed a knife from the shelf and used it to stab Kwong, with the prior intention of avenging himself for his earlier capture and hatred due to Pong's lies.

[8] The police were later contacted, and they investigated the case as murder, and put up a warrant of arrest for Chow Kim Hoong's capture after establishing his identity.

Justice Tan, who pronounced the verdict, stated that there was no doubt that Chow had intentionally knifed Kwong several times with the view of causing bodily injury to Kwong, such that the injuries were sufficient in the ordinary course of nature to cause death, and therefore rejected his defence of having no intention to kill and abnormality of the mind.

[17][18] Therefore, 20-year-old Chow Kim Hoong was found guilty of the murder of Kwong Sau Lan and voluntarily causing hurt to Lee Gan Yoke.

The trial prosecutor was replaced by P O Ram, and the case was heard before a new two-judge panel, consisting of veteran judges A V Winslow and D C D'Cotta.

The second charge for knifing and injuring Lee Gan Yoke was temporarily stood down during the re-trial proceedings for Kwong's murder.

[26][27] While the witnesses of the trial (including Kwong's sister and mother) and testimonies regarding the stabbing largely remained the same,[28][29][30] Chow put up a defence of diminished responsibility.

[42] Subsequently, Chow's application for leave to appeal to the Privy Council in London was dismissed on 20 June 1973,[43] and his clemency petition was also rejected by then President of Singapore Benjamin Sheares in July 1973.

Chow was the fourth person to be executed within the week itself, after the executions of bar hostess Mimi Wong and her sweeper husband Sim Woh Kum for killing a Japanese woman, as well as the hanging of gardener Osman bin Ali for killing both a cook and an amah; all three were hanged on the same morning of 27 July 1973 for their respective offences.

[45][46] As of October 1973, two months after Chow was hanged, thirteen prisoners, eight for murder and five for kidnapping, remained on death row pending their executions.