SINGAPORE, Sept 19 — When landlord Chai Yong Siong discovered the dead body of his tenant’s ex-colleague in his Circuit Road flat, he shouted loudly in shock, having earlier thought she was merely sleeping on the bed.
After he called the authorities, his tenant Boh Soon Ho rang him up from Malaysia, where he had fled to, and confessed to strangling 28-year-old Zhang Huaxiang to death.
Over the next several days, the two men exchanged calls and text messages. Boh told him in Mandarin that there was “fire burning in my head” and that he was angry when he killed Zhang.
“No turning back. I’ve killed a person, (I’m a) murderer now, no saving now,” Chai said Boh had told him.
New details of the alleged murder on March 21, 2016 were revealed in the High Court yesterday afternoon, as Boh’s trial continued.
The 51-year-old Malaysian and Singapore permanent resident has confessed to his crimes. But his defence lawyers are making the case that he was provoked into committing his acts of violence as Zhang had angered him.
If convicted of murder, he faces the death penalty.
After strangling the Chinese national to death with a bath towel, he tried to have sex with her corpse and took photographs of her nude body, but could not sustain an erection, the court has heard.
‘To my horror…’
Chai took the witness stand for about an hour and was questioned on his relationship with Boh, what happened that day, and the events afterwards.
Deputy Public Prosecutor (DPP) Jason Chua took him through his statement to the police, in which he said that he met Boh at Marina Bay Sands integrated resort. Chai works as a chef there, while Boh and Zhang worked as food servers in the staff dining hall.
Chai said he thought that Boh had a girlfriend, ostensibly Zhang, but the court earlier heard that they were never physically intimate. He harboured unrequited love for Zhang and killed her after she rejected his sexual advances.
Around October 2015, Chai began renting out a room in his Circuit Road flat to Boh. Two other tenants from China stayed in the flat as well.
Chai testified that he was not close to Boh but knew him as an easygoing, hardworking and quiet person.
On the day of the murder, Boh called him to say that he would not be renting from him any longer and would be returning to Malaysia to start his own business. He asked Chai if he was returning to the flat that evening and Chai replied “no”.
“He sounded very normal over the phone so I did not think anything would be amiss,” Chai said in his police statement.
When Chai went to the flat the next day, he noticed that the master bedroom door was closed and locked, with the lights turned on. He also felt cold air through the gap under the door, which was because the air-conditioner was on.
Assuming Boh was in, Chai knocked but got no response. Chai opened the door with a key and noticed a pair of women’s shoes under the bed and thought Boh’s girlfriend was sleeping under the bedsheets.
He closed the door and went to have a meal outside. But he “started feeling impatient” after returning later and seeing the door still closed.
“I discovered the figure under the blanket was still. I raised my voice to call ‘hello, hello’ a few times. The figure did not move. I got close to the bedside and pulled the blanket aside and, to my horror, I saw the face of the deceased was darkened. It was obvious she was dead and I let out a loud shout,” DPP Chua read out from Chai’s statement.
‘Wanted to use a big knife to chop’
Chai called the police, and the paramedics arrived to take the body away. That was when Chai realised that he had a missed call from an unknown Malaysian number.
Boh called him again, and told Chai that he had strangled Zhang and that he was in Kuala Lumpur, before ending the call abruptly.
Chai gave evidence of their conversations and phone text messages to the police.
At one point, Boh told him: “I didn’t wish to do this, I have a big luggage, I thought of putting (Zhang’s body) in but it had stiffened.”
Chai responded: “... Don’t scare me. The problem is I can’t even go home now. I don’t know how.”
Boh then said: “The corpse had stiffened, I wanted to use a big knife to chop but… I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I kept wanting to chop, chop, but I really couldn’t… so I took a blanket.”
Boh asked what time Chai had called the police.
About two weeks after the alleged murder, Boh was arrested in Malaysia and brought back to Singapore. He had fled to his sister’s home in Malacca and told her what had happened as well.
The trial continues for the rest of the week. ― TODAY
