[1] On 17 June 1995, at at a construction site in Singapore's Sungei Kadut, a Thai national was found murdered inside his sleeping quarters.

Upon this discovery, the death of Suk was classified as murder, and at least 40 construction workers present at the site were rounded up for questioning,[5] although 27 of them were detained in police custody for the purpose of investigations.

[6] It was revealed that prior to the murder, there had been an alleged dispute between Suk and some other workers over a prostitute,[7] and during an argument in midst of a drinking session, Suk reportedly broke a bottle of strong alcohol and started a fire, which caused one of the other co-workers to get burnt on his left arm, legs and body, and the co-worker, who was the one and only victim in this arson case, was sent to Singapore General Hospital for treatment, where his condition was stabilized by the time the police investigators, led by Richard Lim Beng Gee, began to take up the case.

[11] On 31 October 1995, 28-year-old Thongbai Naklangdon was brought to trial at the High Court for the murder of Suk Malasri four months prior.

Two defence lawyers, Shashi Nathan and Ismail Hamid, were assigned by the state to represent Thongbai during his trial, which was slated to run for five days.

[11][12] One of the prosecution's witnesses was Wilai, a Thai worker who went to tend Suk, who was injured on the head due to the earlier assault.

Thongbai claimed that it might have been another person coming into the bedroom after his departure to finish off Suk, and that his actions only constituted as an offence of voluntarily causing grievous hurt rather than murder.

The judge additionally ruled that the evidence was inherently clear in proving that Thongbai had intentionally and, with premeditation, inflicted severe head injuries on Suk, such that the injuries were sufficient in the ordinary course of nature to cause death, and on these grounds, Judicial Commissioner Singh concluded that the prosecution had proven its case beyond a reasonable doubt, and there were sufficient grounds to return with a guilty verdict of murder in Thongbai's case.

In the appeal itself, the defence counsel raised the same defences used by Thongbai during his trial for murder, and they also argued that Judicial Commissioner Singh should have given due consideration in Thongbai's statements of striking the victim once or twice instead of unequivocally relying on the forensic pathologist's opinion that four to five blows were inflicted to cause the fatal head injuries on Suk Malasri.

Noting that motive was not a prerequisite to guilt, the appellate court determined that Thongbai had gone to approach Suk with the intent to stop him from wreaking further havoc among the construction workers and his claim of having struck Suk only once or twice was inconsistent with the evidence, which showed that the injuries were intentionally inflicted through four or five blows and they were sufficient in the ordinary course of nature to cause death.

[20][21] One of them was also from Thailand like Thongbai, a 24-year-old farmer named Jeerasak Densakul, who was convicted of smuggling 2.2 kg of marijuana in April 1995;[22][23] the second was 36-year-old prostitute Teo Kim Hong, who was charged with stabbing her Malaysian colleague Ching Bee Ing to death in August 1995;[24][25] and the third was 29-year-old hotel worker Zainal Abidin Abdul Malik, who was found guilty of murdering a police officer named Boo Tiang Huat in November 1994.