Yishun triple murders

[The_King]

 

[The_King]

Madam Yang (left) with her daughter Li Meilin, who was the only one to survive Wang's murderous rampage. PHOTO: WANBAO FILE
On Nov 22, 2011, Ms Li, who like Jianyu had been in Singapore to study, took the stand against the man who killed her mother and gave a harrowing account of what happened that night.
Already 18 then, she testified that both she and her mother were sleeping when she was awakened by the sound of heavy breathing outside her bedroom - as if someone was suffocating.
She then heard Jianyu shouting auntie and uncle in Mandarin, then cutlery falling. She and her mother, who was awake by this time, debated on whether to call the police.
Then, the door swung open and Wang rushed in.


Ms Li, still recovering from her wounds, being wheeled by her grandmother and father into the funeral hall at Mandai Crematorium. PHOTO: THE NEW PAPER FILE
Ms Li screamed, and he started slashing her while her mother rushed out. She put her hands up as she squatted with her back to the wall, but Wang continued using the chopper on her.
Then he left to go after Madam Yang. From outside, he warned Ms Li not to move.
Bleeding heavily, she went to the bedroom door to shut it but Wang burst in again. He pushed her onto the bed and continued to stab and slash her. She kicked him in the thigh and he fell, giving her the chance to run out of the room and into the kitchen toilet.
She closed the foldable plastic door but Wang hacked at it until it collapsed, she said, before slashing her head, face and neck until she fell to the toilet floor.
When he left her, her only thought was: "God, let me die."
He returned and stabbed her in the lower back, right ear and back of the neck.
When she regained some consciousness, she could hear Wang speaking to police, who eventually rescued her. What she did not realise at the time was that her mother's body was on the ground floor.
Madam Yang had died from acute haemorrhage due to multiple injuries after landing on her head and left hip. She also had two wounds on her right and left fingers which were not consistent with a fall.


The body of Madam Yang was found at the foot of Block 349 in Yishun. PHOTO: ST FILE


Ms Li takes a final glimpse of her mother, Madam Yang Jie. At the extreme right is her stepfather, Mr Chen Jun To the girl's right is her father, Mr Li Wenge and her grandmother, Madam Zhang Wei.. PHOTO: THE NEW PAPER FILE
It was the prosecution's case that Madam Yang had climbed out of the kitchen window to stand on the narrow concrete overhang, holding on to the laundry pole holders right below the window sill.
Worried that she might escape, Wang used the chopper to cut Yang's fingers, causing her to lose her grip.
Forensic experts did not find Madam Yang's blood within the flat. Instead, it was found on the exterior wall of the kitchen beside the bamboo pole holders, which proved the prosecution's case.
'I DON'T REMEMBER'Wang stuck to the story that he could not remember how he attacked his four victims, claiming his mind had gone blank from rage. He said he did not know how he had a knife in his hand and why he attacked Ms Zhang and the others.
He said it was only when he was taking a shower after the attack that he realised something had happened.
The prosecution however pointed out that not only did he remember to shower to wash the blood, he also then wore his clothes, put plasters on his injured finger, packed his bag, took his travel documents, and wore his socks and shoes.
He was clearly thinking well enough to realise he had to flee.
Wang disagreed, saying if he had wanted to escape, he would have packed all his things and used a better bag. He also claimed he did not remember putting on socks and shoes after his shower.
"I do not remember" became a mantra for him through the trial.
Interestingly, psychiatric experts for the prosecution and defence agreed that Wang was suffering from an "adjustment disorder". However, they disagreed on whether it was enough to impair him so much to reduce his responsibility for the attack.
Justice Chan Seng Onn decided that the anger at the way he had been treated had built up in Wang only to explode in a frenzy after that final argument. He was still in that state when Jianyu came into the room.


Forensic officers taking with them evidence from the Yishun Avenue 11 flat where the killings took place. PHOTO: ST FILE
But after that came a longer series of events - including taking the time to search for a new weapon and having the awareness to warn Ms Li not to run while he searched for her mother - in which Wang could have regained his senses.
And "having killed the very person he was angry with and who had caused him much stress and misery, there ought to have been a considerable degree of release of his bottled up anger and emotions", the judge said.
He found Wang guilty of culpable homicide in the deaths of his lover and her daughter, but of murder when it came to Madam Yang. Wang was sentenced to death.
THE APPEALIn November 2014, Wang, by then 48, failed in his bid to escape the gallows. But it went beyond just losing his appeal against his conviction of murdering Madam Yang. The three-judge court allowed the prosecution's appeal and found Wang guilty of murder in the cases of Ms Zhang and Jianyu as well.
The judges were not convinced that Wang lost control because of his mental condition.
Instead, he had killed Ms Zhang out of extreme anger to "finish her off so that she would never feature in his life again". As for Jianyu, he wanted to eliminate her because she was a witness.
Wang showed no emotion when the verdict was read. This time, there was no smile