On 23 September 1980, inside a terrace house in Opera Estate, Singapore, 23-year-old babysitter Chia Chun Fong (谢芹芳 Xiè Qínfāng) was found dead with a knife stuck to her mouth.

The cause of death, which was previously unknown in Singapore's medical history, was due to the knife cutting through a vertebral artery while being pushed into the mouth, and it consequently led to Chia dying from excessive blood loss.

Chia, who was entrusted to care for the infant son of her neighbour, was later found to have been murdered by her husband's distant relative Tan Cheow Bock (陈昭木 Chén Zhāomù), who fled from Singapore after the killing.

Tan remained on the run for seven years before he was caught for vehicle theft in Malaysia, and extradited back to Singapore for trial.

On the Tuesday morning of 23 September 1980, at a terrace house in Maria Avenue, located at Opera Estate in Singapore, a babysitter was found dead by her mother-in-law in her bedroom, after the elderly woman came back from shopping for materials to celebrate Mid-Autumn Festival.

The police also recovered a broken washboard from the bedroom, which was possibly used by the murderer(s) to assault Chia since her body also had multiple bruises, suggesting that a violent struggle took place.

[12] In March 1987, seven years after the murder of Chia Chun Fong, the wanted suspect, Tan Cheow Bock, was arrested by the Royal Malaysia Police in Johor for stealing cars, and he was charged on 23 May 1987 for the crime.

[13][14] On 25 May 1987, Tan was officially charged in the State Courts with murder, which carried a death sentence if found guilty under the Singaporean Penal Code.

[15][16] During that same month, the Singapore Police Force issued a media statement and thanked the Malaysian authorities for helping to track down and arrest Tan, who was one of the twelve suspects extradited to Singapore with the Malaysian police's assistance between January and June 1987; among the list of suspects extradited also included Hensley Anthony Neville, a Singaporean wanted for the 1984 rape and murder of interior designer Lim Hwee Huang.

35-year-old immigration officer Ong Ka Teck, Chia's husband, revealed that Tan was his distant relative, as well as a long-time family friend who used to be their neighbour at Kampong Chai Chee before their relocation, and he also found that several pieces of jewelry were missing from his house.

In his statements to Sergeant Jaswinder Singh, who interviewed him after his extradition to Singapore, Tan said that he went to Chia's house with hopes to borrow some money to pay off his debt.

Tan, who was married with two children at the time of the murder, recounted that as a result of the debts he incurred from gambling and betting on horse races, he went to Chia's house to borrow money from her.

[32][33][34] On 31 August 1990, after a trial lasting ten days, both Justice Lai Kew Chai and Judicial Commissioner M Karthigesu delivered their verdict.

Justice Lai, who pronounced the judgement in court, stated that there was no doubt that Tan had intentionally caused the fatal injury on Chia, and accepted the prosecution's arguments.

In the aftermath of his trial and execution, Tan's case was constantly cited as a case of legal study with regards to the offence of murder under Section 300(c) of the Penal Code, which scrunitized the guiding principles to find whether a person had the intention to inflict a bodily injury that was sufficient in the ordinary course of nature to cause death, which would determine if a person was, in the end, guilty of murder even if an injury inflicted was rarely observed but could cause death.