in Court “so that you could see a slight impression on it whereas there was none before. This indicates that the washer was never clamped on tight as it should have been on 27 August 1963. Ang said he next attempted to prise out the washer from the 40-cubic-feet Sealion tank (originally used by Jenny) with a knife which had cut the washer. Ang had said that relying on common sense he knew he was unable to use it on his own Healthway tank. Yusuf did not remember this.”
On instructions from the police, Bertrand had experimented with cut washers, and washers which had been gouged or prised out from their seats, after which he had used them on his tank. In all instances there was no perceptible leak. “Henderson has also told you how, with an improvised rubber washer in his own tank, he had been able to dive to a depth of 45 feet, where he remained for 10 minutes. And how he repeated this experiment with a string, reaching a depth of 100 feet, where he remained for 22 minutes without any apparent discomfort. If you accept the evidence of Henderson and Bertrand on this-and also the evidence of your own eyes and ears, it shows conclusively that Ang had been lying about the washer, about the leak, and about the unservice-ability of his scuba equipment. Why should he lie? This was an emergency. His best girl had not surfaced. She had been down some 15 minutes or so, and, on his own calculations, there would be little or no air left in her tank-if nothing else in the meanwhile had happened to her. This was the girl he was going to marry. He was a very good swimmer. He was also a skin-diver. He had all the equipment on board. He was an instructor in scuba-diving. And yet he never dipped one little finger into the water, so to speak, to render her immediate assistance. He never made so much as a token dive to look for her. His bathing trunks never got wet.”
Counsel asked the jury: “What would you have done if your best girl, someone you love most dearly had gone down and not surfaced for 15 minutes? Would you not have been frantic with fear, with anxiety, for her safety? If you were a very good swimmer and a skin-diver, would you not in the circumstances have plunged into the sea to search for her? Why did Ang not do so? The boatman saw moisture below Ang’s eyes. He was not sure whether this was sea water or tears. I suggest to you that this moisture was in fact sea water from his diving mask. Yusuf never heard him weep. If Ang had been truly concerned over Jenny, he would have bestirred himself into greater energy than he had shown. He did not in fact appear a bit concerned or alarmed at Jenny’s disappearance. He did not urge the boatman to hurry to get to St John’s Island. On the contrary, he appeared to have found time to change back into his street clothes. At St John’s Island, Jaffar walked with him to the telephone, and back to the jetty. Ang did not hurry the boatman back to Pulau Dua. Ang wanted her to die. He wanted to make sure she really died. If he had carefully planned her death there was not much point in him going down to look for her-and that, I suggest, was the reason he did not do so.”
Mr Seow said that Ang had told the Court that they were at Pulau Dua to collect corals. Because they were sharp it was necessary to wear gloves. Ang had therefore brought two pairs of gloves. Jenny had gone below to wait for him: they were to collect corals. Yet she never wore her gloves. Ang could not explain how, if Jenny had indeed worn them, they were found in his swimming bag later. “This was no coral-collecting excursion. This was an excursion where, at the end of it, Ang was to collect $400,000 for himself.” Ang had also brought along two improvised weight belts. They had been specially improvised for Jenny. Ang never used a weight belt. The weights were tied at Jenny’s back, but as water is a lubricant it was possible, owing to gravity, for the belt to swing round back to front. “In that eventuality I think you would agree that it would be extremely difficult for Jenny, in an emergency, to jettison the belt, and surface.”
Mr Seow turned next to the flipper. “Who cut the strap? The person who engineered her death. There were three persons in the boat. One of them is the killer. Why was the strap cut? Who had an opportunity of cutting it? Who had the strongest motives to want Jenny’s death? Sunny Ang was the answer to all those questions.’” Counsel argued that all the evidence led to the irresistible inference that Sunny Ang knew that Jenny was dead, and that Ang had killed her, and that he was determined to profit as speedily as possible from her death. “This is a case of a man who planned, and carefully planned, to murder for gain, for $400,000, and who hoped to succeed, as he thought he would, if no trace of the body of his victim could be found.”
Summing Up
Justice Buttrose began his summing up on the afternoon of 17 May 1965. He dealt first with what he called the propriety and wisdom of Mr Coomaraswamy, the defence counsel, interviewing the key witness for the prosecution, the boatman, after the accused had been charged with the offence. He repeated that he accepted Mr Coomaraswamy’s explanation, in that, according to his lights at any rate, he did what he thought was proper in the interests of his client. He told the jury to dismiss the incident completely from their minds. The boatman never changed his story, nor did anyone, he said, ever ask him to do so.
Next the judge warned the jury to ignore completely any rumours they may have heard during the past 21 months that Jenny was still alive. He reminded them that they were concerned only with the evidence. They must be satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that Jenny was dead. What the prosecution had to do was to prove that she was dead. It was not necessary to produce a body. “The absence of a dead body makes the proof of death, of course, more difficult and the onus on the prosecution of proving it heavier. But that is all.” The two questions they must ask themselves were: were they satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that Jenny was dead? Were they satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that she was murdered by the prisoner? There was no actual eye-witness as to how she died. “There is no one who can tell you what happened down on the sea-bed some 30–40 feet below the surface, to this young girl of 22 years of age on this fateful afternoon of 27 August 1963. Only Jenny herself could have told us, but, according to the prosecution, her lips have been sealed for ever.” The judge explained the importance of circumstantial evidence. “The fact of death may be proved, and proved quite adequately, by circumstantial evidence, as may the fact that murder has been committed be proved, and proved quite adequately by circumstantial evidence.”
Justice Buttrose drew the jury’s attention to the disparity in general background between Jenny the bar waitress who could speak only very, very little English, and Ang, a well-educated and knowledgeable young man, then 26 years old. “Jenny you may think felt highly flattered by the attention of this, in her eyes at any rate, young and more mature, better educated and experienced young man. She might-you may not unreasonably, I suggest, conclude-have entertained views of matrimony with him.” The judge referred to Ang’s evidence that there was a tacit understanding between them to marry and that they were in love with each other. “They were also on terms of complete intimacy.”
The judge said there was no dispute over what he called the “extraordinary series of insurance transactions entered into by Jenny, or in her name, or on her behalf. Nevertheless he went through them all, coming finally to the $150,000 policy for five days from 27 August 1963, at 11:00 am, ‘the very day that this tragic occurrence took place, the actual day of the tragedy, when he went to the office of the American International Underwriters alone, bringing with him an application form duly filled in and signed by Jenny’. The beneficiary was again Jenny’s estate. Within three weeks of Jenny meeting the accused she had been insured for very large amounts of money with five different. insurance companies. At the time of the tragedy Jenny had been covered by insurance ‘to the tune of something not far short of half a million dollars’. In some cases, Ang’s mother was the beneficiary, in others, Jenny’s estate. “But the whole of her estate was to go to the accused’s mother by the will that she had drawn up in August.’
Thus, within the short space of three months, Ang had got the whole of Jenny’s estate in his hands, ‘the very substantial benefit of all her insurance policies, and, when we come to his defence, not only had he been paid $2,000 by this bar girl on account of the purchase of the poultry farm, but there was a further $8,000 still due to him by Jenny on account of the balance of the purchase price’. “One must, I think,” added Justice Buttrose, “agree that by any standards, this was quite an achievement and when one considers the youth and age of the accused it is staggering. I don’t think it unfair to say to you, members of the jury, that in the short space of two and a half months he had got the lot. Jenny, so far as the evidence goes, had never before taken, or considered taking out any insurance policies, or of making a will, and it was only after she had met Ang that she did so. And this, gentlemen of the jury, is, according to the prosecution, the motive, the overwhelming motive, for this crime: the golden hope of gain by this undischarged bankrupt with high ambitions.”
The judge drew the jury’s attention to the three letters which Ang sent to three insurance companies the day immediately following the tragedy. They were identical. Jenny had met with a tragic accident while scuba-diving off
