On the afternoon of 14 May 1986, in Owen Road, Singapore, two primary school boys, 12-year-old Keh Chin Ann (born 22 March 1974; Chinese: 郭振安; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Keh Chín-an; pinyin: Guō Zhènān) and his same-age best friend Toh Hong Huat (born 18 May 1974 or 5 June 1974; Chinese: 卓鸿发; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Tō͘ Hông-hoat; pinyin: Zhuó Hóngfā), who were classmates from the same school, were last known to be walking together to school after Chin Ann fetched Hong Huat from his house nearby.
According to Tan, Hong Huat, who was her first and only child, went outside the house and told her he was walking to school with his friend Chin Ann, who came to fetch him.
By evening, after receiving the call from the school teachers, Hong Huat's 46-year-old mother Tan Geok Kuan and Chin Ann's parents - 51-year-old coffee powder seller Keh Cheng Pan (also named Keh Chin Poh; Chinese: 郭清保; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Keh Chheng-pó; pinyin: Guō Qīngbǎo) and 46-year-old housewife Tay Mee Na (Chinese: 郑美娜; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Tēⁿ Bí-ná; pinyin: Zhèng Meǐnà) - showed up in school out of concern.
The police were later contacted and they searched the estates surrounding the boys' school for days following their disappearances, but they could not find any helpful information.
[11][12] A few months after the incident, Hong Huat's mother returned to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia to search for her son.
[18] Despite their poverty, the families of Toh Hong Huat and Keh Chin Ann initially offered a S$1,000 reward each to anyone who could provide information about their sons' whereabouts.
In October 1986, Managing Director Robert Kwan, who led the Singaporean branch of the fast food chain McDonald's, announced that the company would be offering a S$100,000 reward for any new information on the whereabouts of the missing boys.
[24] Another theory was that the boys were abducted by foreign crime syndicates and sent to other countries, where they were forced to act as beggars after getting their limbs and tongues chopped off.
Prior to the hospitalization, Keh had received a phone call from an unknown person who told him not to look for his son as the caller said he had killed both Chin Ann and Hong Huat as sacrifice for a religious ritual.
The 1994 reports of the possible whereabouts of Keh Chin Ann and Toh Hong Huat brought renewed attention to a similar case of a 12-year-old boy who went missing in Singapore back in 1975.
On 14 November 1975, 12-year-old Wong Weng Boon (born in 1963 Chinese: 黄荣文; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: N̂g Êng-bûn; pinyin: Huáng Róngwén) was last seen by his schoolmates leaving school, with only a soccer ball and a $1 coin in his pocket.
His disappearance was first reported three weeks after he went missing, but there was no significant public attention paid to the case and few developments despite police investigations.
[1] Based on his investigation, he speculated that it was highly likely the boys went missing due to Hong Huat's father, Toh Hoo Don.
[2] From this, the private investigator, Henry Tay, theorized that Toh might have met Hong Huat on the day he went missing, and taken him away.
"Samsu" was said to be approached by Toh, who allegedly told her he wanted to take Hong Huat back and raise him.
The unidentified informant claimed that he saw the two boys playing with a girl in a garden behind a hospital, before they encountered a man forcibly taking Toh Hong Huat away.
It was rumoured that the boys were taken to Johor in Malaysia, and they lived in a rural village, where they allegedly went astray and became gangsters in adulthood.
[43] Hong Huat's mother, Tan Geok Kuan, who returned to Malaysia to live, continued to contact the Malaysian authorities for any updates about her son's case.
In 1990, Datuk Seri Michael Chong (aged 72 in 2020), who led the Malaysian Chinese Association's (MCA) Public Services and Complaints Department, received a visit from Tan, who asked for his help to find her son.
Chong, who recounted the case in a 2020 interview, recalled that Tan seemed calm and looked resigned to fate, seeming to be prepared for the worst about her son's disappearance.
Chin Ann's father, Keh Cheng Pan, suffered from poor health allegedly due to his son's disappearance; he had a stroke and also dementia during his elderly years.
According to Chin Ann's mother, Tay Mee Na (aged 80 in 2020), during an interview in 2020, her husband, Keh Cheng Pan, died a few years before 2020.
She also spent her time looking at children playing at the void deck, and never smiled for more than ten or twenty years.
In the show's first episode, Chin Ann's then 70-year-old father, Keh Cheng Pan, was interviewed by the show's production team and spoke about his depression over the uncertain fate of his missing son; he still kept the photos of Chin Ann and Hong Huat in his wallet even after 18 years since the boys' disappearance.