Instead of providing brothels, Orchard Towers serves as an establishment where clients are able to meet and pick up prostitutes whom they take to nearby hotels.

These prostitutes are mostly freelancers who are in Singapore on tourist visas and thus working illegally, and the complex is thus regularly raided by police.

[9] Sime Darby acquired the development in May 1973, as part of their takeover of Golden Bay Realty,[13] and the building was completed by 1975.

[16] In July 2022, nightlife operators at Orchard Towers were notified that their licenses were not being renewed, which the Singapore Police Force attributed to continued issues regarding public safety and vice activities at the development.

These plans included the replacement of the mall's facade, and bringing in more "family-friendly" tenants such as tuition centres and food and beverage outlets in place of the massage parlours and nightspots that had moved out.

After the murders, the bodies of the two deceased were left inside a silver Daewoo Chairman 400 which was abandoned on the 6th storey of the Orchard Towers car park.

Ong was extradited back to Singapore in 2002, and sentenced on 7 February 2003 to 12 years in jail for helping McCrea to dispose of the bodies.

Shopkeepers at Orchard Towers said they heard a group of people shouting and fighting in the early morning.

In 2024, Tan Sen Yang was convicted of murder and was awarded a life sentence and caning of 12 strokes by the High Court.