SINGAPORE: After being jolted awake by a slamming door, a man living in a one-room rental flat in Redhill felt he could no longer tolerate his flatmate, with whom he had been having disputes.
Ng Boon Hong poured boiling oil on 61-year-old Ang Cheng Kek to inflict pain before he stabbed the victim to death with a knife.
On July 1, Ng, who is now 63 years old, was sentenced to life imprisonment after he was convicted of murdering Ang between the night of March 15, 2023 and the early hours of March 16, 2023.
The victim bled to death from multiple stab wounds to the abdomen.
An autopsy found a total of 35 injuries, of which 24 were caused by a sharp cutting weapon, while the rest included burns, bruises, and abrasions.
Ng did not contest the murder charge, which carries the death sentence or life imprisonment.
The prosecution did not object to the life sentence sought by Ng’s lawyers.
High Court Judge Dedar Singh Gill agreed that the imposition of the death penalty was not warranted.
The judge said it was clear that Ng did not want the victim to “die easily”.
He said he bore in mind medical evidence that while the hot oil would have produced sharp pain, it did not play a role in the victim’s death.
The judge considered that the killing took place against the backdrop of ongoing disputes between the two flatmates.
He noted that Ng suffers from a number of chronic conditions, for which he has to take 18 medications daily.
The judge said he showed remorse by surrendering to the police and confessing to his crime at a temple before his arrest.
The two men started sharing the flat since Dec 28, 2022, and disputes soon arose between them.
Ang lodged a police report against Ng for threatening to kill him after he declined a request for loan.
When the victim brought his girlfriend over, Ng had to leave the flat as there was no partition wall in the unit.
Ng felt that the victim had deliberately slammed the door at night to disturb his sleep.
On the other hand, the victim was unhappy with his flatmate’s smoking habit and did not like that Ng hung his underwear to dry in the kitchen area.
At about 11.40pm on March 15, 2023, Ng was upset at being woken up when the victim returned home and slammed the door shut.
After quarrelling with the victim, he returned to bed frustrated, and planned to kill the victim at around 2am, when he believed the neighbours would be asleep.
At about 1.45am, Ng heated a pot of cooking oil on the stove. He added four cut red chillis to the pot and heated them to a blackened state because he wanted the victim to suffer.
While waiting for the oil to boil, Ng checked that the lights in the units above and below theirs were off, and closed all the windows.
At about 2.10am, Ng poured the oil onto Ang’s face before repeatedly stabbing him in the stomach.
Bleeding profusely, the victim jumped off the bed and asked Ng in Hokkien why he was doing this.
Ng then blocked the victim from the distress button located near the main door, which is meant for seniors to call for help in emergencies.
He ignored the victim’s pleas to call an ambulance, and repeatedly stabbed and slashed the victim on the face, neck, back and stomach.
After confirming that the victim was dead, Ng searched Ang’s belongings and took more than $3,000 in cash.
He washed up, changed his clothes, and threw the victim’s phone into a fish tank before heading to a 24-hour coffeeshop in Ang Mo Kio, where he remained until dawn.
He then took a bus to a temple in Bencoolen Street and confessed to the Goddess of Mercy that he had killed the victim.
Ng then spent his own money and the cash taken from Ang on beer, expensive food and entertainment in Geylang, before checking into a hotel with a woman.
The next morning, he had breakfast in Chinatown before giving himself up at the Bukit Merah East Neighbourhood Police Centre.
A psychiatric assessment found that he did not suffer from any mental disorder. An IQ test determined that he was functioning in the borderline range of intellectual activity, but he did not meet the diagnostic criteria for intellectual disability.
Ng has past convictions for offences ranging from extortion to outrage of modesty.
His lawyers, Johannes Hadi and Ng Yuan Siang, said in their mitigation plea that he was living on the streets until 2021, when he was granted the rental flat.
They argued that Ng’s cognitive limitations and poor problem-solving skills made him ill-equipped to manage the confined living environment. - The Straits Times/ANN
