SINGAPORE, Jan 19 — The police said that they have done extensive investigations on the alleged rape and murder of a seven-year-old girl in June 1995, and have continued to conduct regular reviews of the case.
This was their latest statement yesterday in response to queries from TODAY regarding the case.
Lim Shiow Rong’s sister, Lim Jia Hui, 27, and their mother Ang Goon Lay, 65, were called down to the Criminal Investigation Department yesterday morning.
The police said that they are now verifying information received by the family after their public appeal.
The appeal for information was made through a media engagement session on January 10.
The family had been encouraged by the recent development of a murder case involving 19-year-old Felicia Teo Wei Ling who had gone missing 13 years ago, when two suspects were identified in December after the police uncovered new leads in the missing-person case.
In the case of Lim Shiow Rong, she had gone missing from her parents’ drink stall at a coffee shop in Toa Payoh at about 9.30pm on June 24, 1995. A report from The Straits Times on June 27 that year quoted Madam Ang as saying that her daughter had left the stall after telling her that she was going out with “her father’s friend”.
The next morning, the girl’s body was found in some bushes near a sewerage tank off what used to be Jalan Woodbridge. Jalan Woodbridge was a road near the present Institute of Mental Health.
There were injuries on the girl’s face and blood stains on her panties.
The police told TODAY that since the police report was filed, extensive investigations were conducted between 1995 and 2000.
“These included photo identification, extensive interviews, public appeal for information, and following up on information provided by members of the public,” they said.
In addition, a coroner’s inquiry was conducted in 2000, and in August that year, a finding of culpable homicide by person(s) unknown was recorded by the coroner’s court.
After that, the police have continued to conduct regular reviews of the case, they added.
“This included probing into any information provided by members of the public or the deceased’s family, and leveraging advancements in forensic technology.
“For instance, the police followed up on information provided by the deceased’s father when he lodged a police report in June 2014.”
In 2014, the father went to the police after two men had purportedly approached Ms Lim on separate occasions in 2000 and 2001, and asked her to follow them.
The father died in 2016 from abdominal aortic aneurysm, a rupture of a major artery that runs through the abdomen.
This was the first time since 2014 that the family has gone to the police regarding the case.
Last Thursday, Lim made a police report with new information from the public appeal and an officer from the Criminal Investigation Department then contacted her and asked her to go to the Police Cantonment Complex.
The Crime Library Singapore, a non-profit organisation that promotes crime awareness and prevention, organised the press conference on January 10 as well as one yesterday.
Its founder, Joseph Tan, said that he has received two tip-offs since the call for information last week.
One was regarding a regular patron of the coffee shop that allegedly knew the victim, and the other offered more information relating to a sketched description of the suspect that the police provided.
‘We won’t give up on the case’
Speaking to the media yesterday at Ang's coffee shop in Block 75 Toa Payoh Lorong 5 after they went to the police, Lim said the family is assured that the police have been and will be continuing to investigate her sister’s case.
“We won’t give up on the case… We feel that the police are also playing their part in trying to solve it,” she said in Mandarin.
Lim said that she was shown several pictures of the crime scene, but told investigators not to show them to her mother because she was very emotional, tearing up when the police spoke about the incident.
Lim was viewing the photos for the first time herself.
The images showed her sister’s body at the scene of the crime, with blood stains on her face and bruising around her neck.
“I never imagined the condition of her face to be so horrific and bloody… I was taken aback, and the image is very vivid in my head,’ she said.
“It's something that will be hard to forget.”
“I’m happy to see it, because at least I know what happened… my sister really died a horrible death.
You can imagine a seven-year-old child being abused like that, what kind of pain she must have gone through.
“If it were your own child, I think none of you could have endured that, because if she were my child, I couldn’t either.” The family also appealed for anyone with more information to contact either the police or Crime Library Singapore.
“If there are people who know more about the case who step forward with the information, that would be great, as it can help the police, who will continue to investigate and not give up,” she added.
Members of the public who have information on the case may call the police hotline at 1800-255-0000 or submit information online at www.police.gov.sg/iwitness. All information will be kept strictly confidential. ― TODAY
