On 13 April 2015, inside their condominium in Choa Chu Kang, Singapore, 26-year-old motion graphics designer Ng Yao Cheng (黄耀成 Huáng Yàochéng) was attacked and stabbed to death by his youngest brother during an argument.
It was revealed through investigations and trial that Ng Yao Wei had been relentlessly abused by his older brother and this long-standing resentment culminated into the stabbing.
[1] On the night of 13 April 2015, at a condominium in Singapore's Choa Chu Kang, a fight between two brothers ended with the death of one of them, and another was arrested for his murder.
Many of Yao Cheng's co-workers praised his work performance and dedication to design, which he viewed as a "repayment back to society."
Ng, who graduated from Singapore Polytechnic, was reportedly an avid gamer and anime lover, and he had once got into trouble with the authorities for illegally downloading games.
He was formerly a student of ITE College Central before he graduated with good grades and entered Singapore Polytechnic, where he completed a course in business information technology and even earned a place on the Director's Honour Roll during his second year.
On 12 April 2015, the day before Ng Yao Wei murdered his older brother, he invited his two friends over to play computer games.
This nearly escalated into a fight before Ng's father managed to defuse the situation and asked Yao Cheng to go back to his room.
Ng, who felt humiliated and enraged for being scolded in front of his friends, in addition to feeling threatened by his brother's death threat, decided to bring a knife out of the kitchen and hid it under his pillow inside his room, which he shared with Yao Cheng.
An autopsy report revealed that Yao Cheng suffered 22 knife wounds, and three of them were sufficient in the ordinary course of nature to cause death; two of them penetrated the lungs and a third went through the neck.
[27][28] During a hearing convened before Judicial Commissioner Audrey Lim at the High Court, Ng, who was represented by notable criminal lawyer Josephus Tan, pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of his brother, and was scheduled to be sentenced on the same date.
The defence proposed that Ng should be jailed for not more than seven years, as he was a "quiet and timid" person who had been relentlessly subjected to longstanding physical and verbal abuse by Yao Cheng, who often used him as a "punching bag" and, as partly caused by depression, Ng heard Yao Cheng's death threats and they caused him to conceal a knife out of fear for his life.
[30] After mulling over the submissions from both sides, Judicial Commissioner Audrey Lim sentenced 22-year-old Ng Yao Wei to seven years' imprisonment.