Ramapiram was last seen alive six hours before her corpse was discovered, with thirteen stab wounds on her head and neck, and her body showed signs of being run over by a vehicle.
Investigations and court proceedings revealed that Ramapiram and Nadasan were engaged in an illicit love affair with each other, even though both were married to different spouses and had children.
On the evening of 17 April 1995 at 6 pm, 38-year-old Soh Jin Chwee was jogging along the forest of Ulu Sembawang when he discovered the body of a woman lying in the undergrowth.
The police were contacted the next day by Soh's brother, and subsequently, an autopsy report by forensic pathologist Dr Paul Chui revealed that the woman had thirteen stab wounds on her head and neck, and also sustained broken ribs and pelvis, which showed that she could be run over by a vehicle.
[1][2] The woman was identified as 39-year-old production operator Ramapiram Kannickaisparry, who was married to an army officer Munisamy Pandian, with whom she had two sons.
[3][4] Three days later, the police arrested a suspect, who was a 40-year-old mechanic named Nadasan Chandra Secharan, the younger brother of Ramapiram's brother-in-law, outside his Yishun flat.
[6][7] A broken tooth was found inside Nadasan's van, in addition to some gold items and jewellery, which were purportedly belonging to the deceased victim.
Nadasan was retrenched in 1989 and switched to self-employment in 1992, before he went on to become a mechanic at the Seletar Country Club, a job which he held until his arrest for allegedly murdering Ramapiram.
[9] On 11 January 1996, Nadasan Chandra Secharan stood trial for the murder of Ramapiram Kannickaisparry in the High Court, with the case being heard by the High Court's judge Lai Kew Chai (who notably sentenced both serial killer Sek Kim Wah and child killer Took Leng How to death in 1985 and 2005 respectively).
This possibility was given some credence with Nadasan's recount that he often ate food and drank beer with Ramapiram behind his van during the happier moments of their four years together up until her murder.
[10][20] The aftermath of Nadasan's trial also led to Singapore deciding to adopt better technology to help facilitate better-quality forensic and DNA examinations.
[21] A March 1998 article from the national newspaper The Straits Times revealed that the total cost of Nadasan's trial amounted to S$100,000.
These above explanations lent credence to the theory that Ramapiram herself broke her tooth when opening beer bottles a long time prior to her death.
[30] On the same day of his acquittal and release, Nadasan Chandra Secharan returned to his home in Yishun, and he reunited with his three children and wife, the latter who had long forgiven him for the affair.
[31][32][33] Nadasan was also allowed to go back to the Seletar Country Club to resume his original job as a mechanic, and he decided to move on with his life after putting the horrors of receiving the death sentence and affair behind him.
According to his former lawyer Subhas Anandan, who maintained regular contact with him and occasionally met him at the temple (up until his death in 2015), Nadasan was still living well with his family and reconciled with them.
In February 2012, 15 years after he escaped the death penalty, it was reported that Nadasan was a victim of assault at a supermarket in Yishun, when he was battered up by a Filipino waiter who accused him of cutting the queue; Nadasan had forgotten about a bottle of jam and had left the queue to retrieve it before his return, but his explanation was not accepted by the perpetrator and the perpetrator's wife.