On 6 January 1998, two days after she went missing, the semi-naked corpse of 19-year-old Dini Haryati, an Indonesian student and intern hotel receptionist working in Singapore, was discovered in a forest at Woodlands, with injuries to her head, abdomen and neck.

The police conducted extensive investigations to solve the case and sought information on any suspects behind the brutal rape-murder, which shocked the nation at that time.

[3] Dini studied up to high school and later completed a two-year hotel management diploma course with the Bandung Tourism College.

[7] On the morning of 6 January 1998, two days after Dini disappeared, a gardener was busy cutting grass in an area nearby Woodlands MRT station when she discovered the semi-naked corpse of a girl, who was only wearing a white shirt and had bruises on her head, neck and abdomen.

At the time of her death, Dini had one more week before completing her training in Singapore and originally wanted to return to Indonesia to celebrate Hari Raya with her family and invite her Singaporean friends over.

Under the laws of Singapore, any offenders found guilty of murder would be sentenced to death by hanging, and the punishment for the rape was up to twenty years in prison, in addition to either a fine or caning, up to 24 strokes.

Dini was speculated to have last walked on a concrete pathway outside the Woodlands MRT station before she was attacked by her rapist, who possibly knocked her unconscious and dragged her to the bushes to sexually assault the girl before killing her.

[19] As part of their investigations, the police interviewed over 300 foreign workers living in nearby dormitories, but could not find any suspects, and no murder weapons were recovered.

[24] Three months after Dini was killed, Singaporean crime show Crimewatch re-enacted the murder case and it aired on television in April 1998.

Three years later, a lone female jogger at MacRitchie Reservoir was also attacked and sexually assaulted, but the assailant fled upon the appearance of other passers-by, and the 23-year-old victim survived her ordeal.