structured. Over the 140-odd years of Singapore’s existence in a legalistic sense, first as a British trading post, then as a colony which rapidly developed after the Second World War into a protected self-governing state before becoming part of independent Malaysia (Singapore became an independent sovereign state in August 1965), there had been many murder trials. But there had always been a body. This was the first time a man stood in a Singapore Court charged with the murder of a person whose body could not be produced.
And no one saw the murder. No one saw the girl die.
At the time Jenny died, her body swept out to sea, her air tank probably exhausted and her flipper lost, Sunny Ang was talking to the boatman. The prosecution argued that Ang did not dive in at all that afternoon because he wanted to remain in sight of the boatman, his alibi. It could therefore never be said of him that he went under the water and killed Jenny. He was with the boatman all the time. By remaining in the sampan throughout the entire incident he could always say it was an accident with which he was in no way concerned.
Thus, not only did the prosecution have to satisfy the jury that Jenny Cheok was dead, a conclusion to be reached only through circumstantial evidence, for her body had disappeared, but the prosecution, by the same means, by circumstantial evidence, had also to prove that Sunny Ang was responsible for the accident which was intended to cause Jenny’s death.
“Murder,” Justice Buttrose told the jury, “is the unlawful killing or causing of death of one human being by another human being with the intention of doing so. An accidental killing or causing of death is not murder because, in such a case, the intention to cause death was absent. The intention to kill, therefore, is of the essence of the offence.”
On the question of intention, the judge said that “every person is presumed to intend the natural and probable consequences of his acts. In other words, that he intends to do what he in fact does.” He gave an example. “If two persons are walking together along a high cliff-top, with the sea and the rocks hundreds of feet below; and as they approach a certain point on the cliff which is known to one of them to overhang the rest of the cliff and to be in a dangerous condition; and he turns to the other-his intended victim, whom he intends to murder- and says, ‘You go along the edge and have a look over because the view is superb and you can see the breakers crashing on the rocks below’; and the unsuspecting victim goes on, while the other who has asked him to go on has conveniently discovered a pebble in his shoe, and he steps behind to take off his shoe and to get rid of this imaginary pebble; and his victim on reaching the cliff-edge, it caves in, and he is dashed to his death on the rocks below-now that, members of the jury, is murder, just as if the other had gone along and pushed his victim over the edge.”
“Similarly,” explained Justice Buttrose, “if you take a novice scuba-diver to waters which you knew to be inherently dangerous with the intention that this novice scuba-diver shall dive into those waters, and you intend that by so doing she will never come up again, that she will be killed-for whatever reason at all is quite immaterial-if that is your intention, that this novice diver should go down into those waters and you intend that she should be killed, then that is equally murder as if you had accompanied that novice diver down to the bottom of the sea-bed and strangled her with your own hands.”
Justice Buttrose said the prosecution had to prove three things. First, that the death of a human being had taken place. Second, that such death was caused by or in consequence of the act of the accused. Third, that such act was done with the intention of causing death.
On the first point, the judge went on, “If no death, then of course no murder. You will observe that I have deliberately and intentionally said, ‘If no death, then no murder’, not ‘If no dead body, then no murder’. The difference in phraseology is vital because the distinction is very real. It seems to have become a popular fallacy that there can be no conviction for murder unless the body of the victim is found and produced. Nothing could be more fallacious or more untrue. I direct you, as a matter of law, that a person may be convicted of murder without the body of the victim being found or produced.” Justice Buttrose said that what the prosecution must do was to prove the death of a human being, not to produce a dead body. The production of the dead body, of course, made the proof of death very easy. The absence of a dead body, of course, made the proof of death more difficult, and the onus on the prosecution of proving it, heavier. But that was all.
The judge warned the jury they must be satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that Jenny was murdered by Ang, in that he caused her death with the intention of causing her death. “There is no actual eye-witness as to how she died. There is no one who can tell us 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, the 27 of August 1963. Only Jenny herself could have told us, but, according to the prosecution, her lips have been sealed forever.”
The prosecution case was that Jenny was dead, and that Ang deliberately and intentionally caused her death. They relied entirely on circumstantial evidence to prove it. “Now,” said the judge, “in case there should be any idea in your minds that circumstantial evidence is intrinsically or necessarily of any less value than the direct testimony of eye-witnesses, let me at once disabuse you on it.” Justice Buttrose said that the fact of death may be proved, and proved quite adequately, by circumstantial evidence, as may the fact that murder had been committed be proved, and proved quite adequately, by circumstantial evidence.
“But,” added the judge, “there are two things I must tell you about circumstantial evidence. The first is that it is the cumulative effect of all the evidence that is important, not one isolated link in the chain of circumstantial evidence. It would be quite wrong for you to consider the case link by link, and looking at one link in the chain, say to yourselves, ‘Well, that is certainly very suspicious, but not enough’, and discard it: and so on through each separate link doing the same thing until nothing is left. That would be an utterly erroneous approach to this question, and you must consider circumstantial evidence in its totality. The cumulative effect of every one of those links must be considered together, not individually. The second thing I must draw your attention to is that the question in this case, depending as it does on circumstantial evidence, is whether the cumulative of all the evidence leads to the irresistible conclusion that it was the accused who committed this crime. Or is there some reasonably possible explanation such as, for example: was it an accident?”
The Trial: Case For The Prosecution
The trial lasted 13 days. The foreman of the seven-man jury was a Dane, Nielsen Jorgan Neinholdt. Court documents showed that the case had been marked No. 13 of 1965. Mr Francis Seow, prosecuting on behalf of the State, was assisted by Mr Syed Alwee bin Ahmad Alsree.
The charge was: “That you, Sunny Ang, alias Sunny Ang Soo Suan, alias Anthony Ang, on or about the 27 day of August 1963 at or about 5:00 PM at sea off Pulau Dua, also known as the Sisters Islands, Singapore, committed murder by causing the death of one Jenny Cheok Cheng Kid and thereby committed an offence punishable under Section 302 of the Penal Code Chapter 119.”
“I claim trial,” said Sunny Ang.
Mr Francis Seow’s opening speech was not unduly lengthy. “The case for the prosecution,” he began briskly, “is that Sunny Ang on 27 August, 1963, at about 5:00 PM murdered Jenny Cheok Cheng Kid by causing her to be drowned whilst she was scuba-diving in the Straits between Pulau Dua… the prosecution suggests that her body was carried by the currents probably out to the open sea. At any rate, it was never found, despite intensive search for several days by divers from the Royal Navy and from the RAF Changi Sub-aqua Club.”
At once Mr Seow sought to establish the legal fact that murder can be determined through circumstantial evidence even though the body of the victim is missing. He said, “This is the first case of its kind to be tried in our Courts. There is no body here. There is a general belief that you cannot charge a person with, let alone convict him of, the offence of murder where the victim’s body has not or could not be found. This is, of course, quite fallacious. If a person who kills another person is crafty enough to dispose of the body of the victim successfully, say by dissolving it in an acid bath or where he intentionally causes his victim to drown at sea, using his knowledge of the tides and currents, calculates that his victim’s body would be carried by tidal streams out to the open sea (which makes it difficult if not impossible to recover the body), it does not mean that he cannot be prosecuted for murder, and if prosecuted, cannot be convicted of it. It only means that the onus of proof on the prosecution becomes heavier than usual. In such cases, there are two main questions which the prosecution will have to prove to your satisfaction. The first is: is the person named in the charge dead? Is Jenny dead? If so, the second question will be, at the end of this trial: has it been proved that the prisoner, Sunny Ang, murdered her? In the context of this case,
