On 30 November 1992, 32-year-old Tan Heng Hong (Chinese: 陈庆宏; pinyin: Chén Qìnghóng), a Singaporean odd-job labourer and loan shark, was murdered by two security guards, S. S. Asokan and Maniam Rathinswamy, who lured him to a room at Tan Tock Seng Hospital under the pretext of offering to sell gold.
On 30 November 1992, a farmer discovered a burnt car with human remains (whose gender was unidentifiable) and a charred head of an axe inside a forested area at Mandai.
[1][2] Incidentally, in April that same year, there had been a separate case of another burnt car with human remains along a dirt track off Mandai Road.
Professor Chao Tzee Cheng, a forensic pathologist, examined the body and found that there was little soot particles in the throat and lungs, and concluded that the victim did not die in the fire.
[12][11][13] Asokan, on the other hand, was detained in Malaysia for trial on robbery, which would take place before he could return to Singapore to face a murder charge regarding Tan's death.
Maniam said it was Asokan's idea to burn the body after they both did everything they could to hide Tan's corpse, so as to avoid retribution from the authorities.
[23] On 3 December 1993, Maniam, whose defence was rejected, was convicted of murder and sentenced to death by the trial judge T. S. Sinnathuray, who formerly heard the case of child killer Adrian Lim (executed in 1988).
After he eventually finished serving his sentence, Asokan was released and extradited to Singapore on 13 August 1994, and faced a murder charge for fatally slashing Tan with an axe.
[27][28] Asokan stood trial on 10 January 1995, and while testifying in court, he gave a different account than Maniam, which provided more details from his perspective regarding the case.
Asokan told the court that Maniam was the one who brought the axe and knife to the printing room at Tan Tock Seng Hospital.
[35][36][37] In the aftermath, Singapore crime series Crimewatch re-enacted the case of Tan's murder in the tenth episode of the show's annual season in 1995.