Mimi Wong
Wong Weng Siu, more commonly known as Mimi Wong, was a Singaporean bar hostess who became the first woman to be sentenced to death and executed for murder in Singapore since its independence. Wong was alleged to have murdered Ayako Watanabe, the wife of her Japanese lover Hiroshi Watanabe, on 6 January 1970. Wong was not alone in this crime; her former husband and sweeper Sim Woh Kum had also helped Wong to restrain the victim while Wong repeatedly stabbed the woman to death.
The act was witnessed by Watanabe's eldest daughter Chieko, who testified against the couple in their 26-day trial. Wong's defence of diminished responsibility was rejected by the High Court, which found both herself and Sim guilty of Watanabe's murder and sentenced them to death, which also made them the first couple to be subjected to capital punishment in Singapore since its independence in 1965. Both were executed on 27 July 1973.
Early life
Mimi Wong, birth name Wong Weng Siu, was born in 1939 at Singapore, Straits Settlements. She was the offspring of her father's second wife.According to articles that covered her case, it was said that Wong had an unhappy childhood since her birth. Wong's father died of unknown causes when she was eleven months old. Her biological mother Leong Kuan Fong was so poor that she was unable to continue taking care of Wong, which led to her being sent to live with her father's first wife Ho Ah Soong and her nine half-siblings. Other than poverty, Wong suffered abuse from Ho and her siblings, who verbally and physically abused her at every moment, even at times in the presence of Wong's birth mother. Whenever it was mealtime, Wong's nine half-brothers and half-sisters were allowed to eat first, while Wong was not allowed to join them. She would only be given leftovers once the whole family finished eating.
Wong did not have a chance to go to school during her childhood. She started to work at age fourteen, first becoming a factory worker to support herself. Despite this, Wong continued to live in extreme poverty.
Marriage and separation
In 1956, the year she turned 17, Wong Weng Siu was invited to a picnic by a friend. During this time, she first met a HDB sweeper named Sim Woh Kum, who was six or seven years older than her. Sim was also working as a school canteen stallholder at the time he first knew Wong. Subsequently, both Wong and Sim became romantically involved. The couple dated for the next two years before they married in 1958. In that same year, both Wong and Sim welcomed their first son. Their second son was born four years later in 1962.However, the marriage slowly became marred by marital issues and arguments. Wong, who possessed a bad temper since she was young, and with a family history of mental illnesses, was said to have frequently abused her husband, and would not hesitate to arm herself to physically assault Sim whenever their arguments turned violent. Sim, who was a naturally mild-tempered person, often silently endured these physical abuses, which at one point left a scar on his forehead. He even ran out of the house numerous times whenever Wong picked up a knife or wooden rod with intent to pick a fight. Wong even went as far as to abuse her own mother-in-law, which led to her being considered an "empress daughter-in-law" reminiscent of Wu Zetien.
Not only that, Sim himself was a compulsive gambler, who often gambled away their hard-earned money, which aggravated the family's already-precarious financial situation. The gambling habit would cost Sim his job and the family's life savings. This forced Wong to take up part-time jobs to support their family, including a stint at a bar as a hostess. Despite his loss of employment, Sim persisted in his gambling habits, and he sometimes stole Wong's hard-earned income to feed his own appetite for gambling. Given their financial difficulties and Sim's own incompetence, Wong was slowly disillusioned with Sim, and she ultimately decided to leave him in 1963, resulting in Sim having to take care of their two sons and his own elderly mother alone.
After her separation from Sim, Wong would purposely strut with her boyfriends in front of Sim, according to his account of his life before Ayako Watanabe's murder. Sim, who still loved Wong despite their separation, had always hoped that Wong would reconcile with him and often told her not to do that in front of him.
Bar hostess career and relationships
After her separation from Sim Woh Kum, Wong Weng Siu went on to work as a cabaret girl in a bar, adopting a stage name "Mimi Wong". Using her good looks and slender, sexually-attractive figure, Wong quickly earned popularity among the male customers of the bar. Wong's reputation was so huge that she even became the queen of all bar hostesses in Singapore.In 1966, three years after she first started her bar hostess career, Wong first met Hiroshi Watanabe, an engineer and high-ranking member of a Japanese corporation. Watanabe was first sent to Singapore in January 1966 and was first assigned a job to carry out a reclamation project in the eastern part of Singapore. His wife and three children - a son and two daughters - remained in Japan. When they first met, Watanabe instantly became attracted to Wong. He would later on frequently go to the bar just to interact with Wong, who slowly became attracted to Watanabe as well. They later became lovers, though Watanabe himself could not bear to abandon his wife for Wong, for he still harboured feelings for his wife despite the infidelity, and Wong herself knew that their illicit relationship will not end well given Watanabe's status as a married man.
Eventually, Wong became pregnant with Watanabe's child. Despite asking for money from Hiroshi for an abortion, Watanabe declined her request by claiming that he had no cash. Wong later travelled to Penang for an abortion. Despite this, the two maintained their relationship. Simultaneously, in 1968, two years into her relationship with Watanabe, Wong met a Hong Kong businessman, who also fell for her and started a relationship with Wong. Wong later separated from Watanabe and stayed together with the Hong Kong businessman. Despite this, she wrote Watanabe love letters. Wong's relationship with the businessman did not last long, as when the man found out that Wong was pregnant with his child, he drove her out of his house. This time, Wong did not abort the fetus, and in 1969, after she returned to Singapore, she gave birth to a daughter. She temporarily took up a job as a social escort to eke out a living.
Aside from her return to Singapore, Watanabe continued to visit Wong, who officially became his mistress. For every month, Watanabe gave her $200 out of his income to support her, and he rented a room at Alexandra Road for her. A few months later, the couple moved to Everitt Road and lived together with Wong's daughter, and Wong also hired a servant to tend the house.
Murder of Ayako Watanabe
Mimi Wong's first meeting with Ayako Watanabe
In late-1969, three years into his relationship with Mimi Wong, Hiroshi Watanabe decided to admit to his wife that he indeed had an affair with another woman. According to Watanabe, his wife did not approve of his affair with Wong. Watanabe could not end the relationship immediately, as he knew that Wong had a bad temper besides being able to drink a lot of alcohol. When Wong became aware of this, Watanabe was given some hints from Wong that something drastic would happen to his wife or him or his family if he ever dared to cut off ties with her.By then, Watanabe did harbour thoughts of leaving Wong as he could not bear to leave his wife and children, but he was afraid of what Wong would do if he really ended the affair. Hence, Watanabe decided to persuade his wife to come to Singapore with their children, to meet up with Wong. When she received news that Watanabe’s wife would be coming to Singapore with their three kids, Wong was enraged to hear this and abused Watanabe. Gradually, it took some time for Watanabe to finally persuade Wong to meet his wife and children.
On 23 December 1969, Watanabe's wife Ayako Watanabe and her three children arrived in Singapore by flight. Hiroshi Watanabe took his family to Everitt Road where they first met Wong and her daughter. Despite welcoming the family into the house and treating them nicely, Wong was writhing in jealousy behind this facade of kindness and politeness. Subsequently, the Watanabe family went to live in a rented house in Jalan Sea View.
Despite her hatred and envy, Wong tried her best to be nice towards the family, and even offered sweets to the three children, who called her "Obasan". In fact, when she saw Watanabe's loving and warm attitude with his wife and children, she could not bring herself to do anything to tear apart the family despite the jealousy. However, on New Year's Eve, after a party, Hiroshi Watanabe came back intoxicated with too much alcohol, and during his drunken conversation with Wong, he allegedly said that his wife called Wong a prostitute. This greatly offended Wong. In combination with her prior jealousy, Wong could not resist her emotions any further.
Wong went back to her estranged husband Sim Woh Kum, then aged 37, to tell him about her plans to kill Ayako. Wong even offered Sim some money if he could help her to do the job. Despite his own reservations about committing murder, Sim decided to accept the offer for he still loved Wong and he was facing huge financial troubles while alone taking care of his mother and two sons.
Murder
On 6 January 1970, Wong and Watanabe shared a dinner at their Everitt Road house. Wong asked Watanabe if he could spend the night with her. Watanabe declined, saying that he would be working overtime, and once he finished his work for the day, he would go back to Jalan Sea View to spend the night with his family. Upon hearing this, Wong realised this was a good chance for her to get back at Ayako.Both Wong and Sim went together to the Jalan Sea View house where the Watanabes were spending the night. Wong brought along a pair of gloves and a knife, while Sim took a tin half-filled with toilet-cleaning liquid, in order to pretend to be a toilet cleaner coming to clean the house. When Ayako saw Wong and Sim, she asked the woman what she wanted. After hearing Wong telling her that she had brought a worker to repair a broken toilet basin, Ayako allowed them in.
While the 33-year-old Japanese woman was welcoming her visitors into the house, the Watanabes' eldest daughter, nine-year-old Chieko Watanabe, was inside her bedroom with her two younger siblings, and she could not fall asleep despite her efforts to do so. She heard screaming and looked out to see her mother being attacked by both Sim and Wong inside the toilet. Sim had earlier threw some of the toilet cleaning liquid inside Ayako Watanabe's eyes, and covered her mouth to stop her from shouting, while Wong used the knife to stab at Ayako. Chieko shrieked out of shock and cried over what happened, which attracted the attention of both Wong and Sim. Quickly, Wong abandoned the task of stabbing Ayako and covered the little girl's mouth. The girl stopped crying and quickly rushed into her room to get her brother and sister to wake up. After which, Chieko ran out and get to her mother, who was bleeding massively and died shortly after staggering towards her eldest daughter. By then, Wong and Sim were also seen running out of the house and escaped. Wong went to her amah to temporarily seek refuge while Sim went to his friend's flat to ask him to rent a room for Wong. According to some witnesses who encountered Wong before her arrest, they claimed that Wong, who took her daughter with her during her escape, told them that she had stabbed a Japanese woman while drunk.
Hiroshi Watanabe returned later that night. He went inside the house and was shocked to see his three children crying over the corpse of his deceased wife, which sent the 37-year-old mechanical engineer into hysterics. Hiroshi then asked his daughter what had happened, and Chieko told him that she saw Wong and a man she did not know attacking her mother. Police were contacted and police officer Tan Kim Hai headed the investigations. The investigations led to the police arresting both Wong and Sim the next day. Wong and Sim were both identified out of an identification parade by Chieko, who would become the prosecution's key witness against the couple in their trial. Wong and Sim were charged with Ayako's murder.
Meanwhile, the corpse of Ayako was taken to the mortuary, where forensic pathologist Chao Tzee Cheng examined the body. Professor Chao found two knife wounds on Ayako Watanabe's neck, and one to her abdomen, along with a few others. There were two fatal wounds that caused the woman's death - one to the neck and one to the abdomen. Chao also made a certified finding that the woman died around 5 to 6 minutes after the fatal wounds were inflicted on her, which cut through the major blood vessels and caused her to die. Professor Chao was also certain that these wounds were not self-inflicted by Ayako in the form of suicide, given that she was not a left-hander and these wounds were mainly located on the right side, making it hard for her to stab herself with the left hand. He was also certain that there were other people in the toilet where they died, thus fitting the notion that Wong and Sim had done the killing together.