Murder of Choo Xue Ying
On 16 October 2008, during a heated argument inside her car, 47-year-old Choo Xue Ying, alias Jennifer Choo, was assaulted to death by a business partner Rosli bin Yassin, AKA Ali and abandoned it at Bukit Batok Nature Park, where Choo's skeletal remains were discovered four days after her death. Rosli, who was later found to have committed cheating following the murder itself, was arrested and charged with killing Choo, and his girlfriend was also charged with abetting him to commit cheating. Rosli's murder charge was subsequently reduced to manslaughter, and after pleading guilty to the reduced charge and several other unrelated charges for cheating, Rosli was sentenced to 12 years of preventive detention on account of his long criminal record, and subsequently, through the prosecution's appeal, Rosli's sentence of preventive detention was raised to the maximum of 20 years for the same reason, as well as due to his high risk of re-offending and his original sentence was manifestly inadequate.
Discovery of body and identification
On 20 October 2008, while he was jogging at Lorong Sesuai near Bukit Batok Nature Park, 57-year-old Samuel Lye detected an extremely foul smell, and as he followed the source of the odour, he made a gruesome discovery of a highly decomposed corpse located within the vegetation of the park's forest. Lye immediately reported the shocking discovery to the police. It was not the first case of such nature, as in 2000, a woman was raped and murdered in the same park.A team of police investigators, led by Inspector Kelvin Kwok, arrived at the scene to check the corpse, but the identity of the body was unknown. Dr Paul Chui, a forensic pathologist, inspected the body and told the police that the deceased was a female, most likely aged between 25 and 45, and the probable cause of death was a severe injury he found on the skull, and it was inflicted with blunt force trauma, and he believed that based on the extremely high degree of decomposition, the woman had died for about four days. At that stage when the fingerprints cannot be lifted, Dr Chui said that only the teeth could help the police identify the deceased. At the scene, the police also discovered tyre marks located narrowly between each other and broken glass, which suggested a small vehicle likely belonged to the killer or victim, and there were signs that the body might have been brought here for disposal. The belongings of the deceased discovered were photographed and published on the press to seek any leads to ascertain her identity, which remained unidentified for the next few days. Her rings and jewellery were untouched at the time her body was found.
Upon further autopsy, it was found that the deceased had "a fair amount of dental work" done, as she had three dental implants, as well as crowning in one premolar tooth with root canal treatment administered on the same premolar tooth, and a metal filing in the neighbouring tooth. After consulting several dental experts, and obtaining the serial number and brand of the victim's dental implants, which belonged to a batch that was imported to Singapore between January and June 2007, the police managed to narrow down the list of clinics in Singapore, all of which received the batch of implants. After several days of investigation and consultations with the shortlisted dental clinics, a dentist operating at Sims Avenue, Dr Leslie Boey, identified the dental records of the deceased, which matched to the ones in his clinic database. The deceased, according to Dr Boey's record, was 47-year-old Choo Xue Ying, a Singaporean citizen and property agent working under Propnex.
Police investigations
Arrest of Rosli bin Yassin
Background profile of the late Choo Xue Ying, alias Jennifer Choo, revealed that she was single, and had two brothers and a mother who used to live at Sims Avenue, but they were not close, and she never contacted them for about six months before her death. Choo's brother said that his sister had gone to university before becoming a property agent, which she worked for years until her death. At the time she died, Choo was renting a room from her 82-year-old former neighbor and ex-client, Lu Zhen Zong, who told them that Choo moved into his Eunos flat months before her death and she treated him well and helped him do some household chores or make breakfast. Lu, who was saddened and shocked to hear about Choo's death, told them he last saw her about a week before the police arrived at his flat but he thought she was going on a business trip like she sometimes would. Choo's belongings were seized by the police for DNA testing and it was thus confirmed that the skeletal remains indeed belonged to Choo. Choo's colleagues noted she was a loner who did not speak to them much, and she had a few friends, and one of them from her workplace wrote a eulogy for her, describing her as a nice-mannered and beautiful person; she was also said to be a tough person. Later, Choo's car, a small, yellow Cherry QQ, was discovered abandoned at Jalan Kubor, and there were bloodstains with Choo's DNA inside the car, suggested that Choo was assaulted inside the car, and the broken glass found at the park were found to match the ones on Choo's car headlight.Phone records were obtained from Choo's handphone, which was missing at the time her body was discovered, and it was found that the phone was still in use even after she died. The numbers dialed during that period were traced to three people: one of them was a 33-year-old Indonesian woman named Jelly, who was found to be an overstayer, another was a 51-year-old MRT station cleaner named Zubaidah binte Ali and a third was 46-year-old Adros bin Syed Omar. Both Zubaidah and Adros were interviewed by the police, and they both claimed that a man named "Ali" approached them. According to Zubaidah, Ali offered her a cleaning job at his company, and after they met a second time at a coffee shop, Ali left after borrowing her phone, and he never returned since, and the phone was missing. As for Adros, who was a friend of Ali and first met Ali in prison, he made a police report about Ali cheated him of his money, and he said Ali and his girlfriend, who was identified as Jelly, met Adros and wanted Adros to help him open a coffee shop, and also gave him cheques that were blank but contained signatures from Ali's lawyer as what Ali claimed. However, Adros was informed that the cheques were rejected due to the signatures were not the ones authorized. These cheques were later traced and they belonged to the alleged murder victim Choo Xue Ying, and the signatures were actually Choo's, but they were forged by Ali and Jelly. Ali and Jelly were thus classified as suspects for Choo's murder.
On 31 October 2008, after receiving intel that Ali and Jelly were hiding in Sentosa, the police arrested the couple at a hotel room. 49-year-old Ali, whose real name was Rosli bin Yassin, was charged with murder on 13 November 2008, and Jelly was charged for helping Rosli to commit cheating and forging Choo's cheques to help Rosli in his cheating scheme. Some of Rosli's cheating offences were also committed at least two months prior to the murder of Choo, who was an acquaintance of Rosli. Choo's brother, who reclaimed his sister's body for cremation and funeral proceedings, expressed that he was grateful and found closure with his sister's killer caught, in spite of the estranged relationship.
Subsequently, Rosli was ordered to stand trial for murder after a preliminary hearing in September 2010, and the trial date was scheduled on 25 October 2010. If Rosli was found guilty of murder, he would be sentenced to death.
Rosli bin Yassin's account
The following account was Rosli's version of events that led to the murder of Choo Xue Ying.Rosli, who was released from prison in April 2008 for a cheating offence, first met Choo in July 2008, and they had a good working relationship, as Rosli would regularly introduce potential clients to Choo on dealings with property. According to Rosli, on the morning of 16 October 2008, Jelly and Rosli went to the Geylang East Community Library, where he met up with Choo for an upcoming business dealing. Jelly remained at the library after Choo and Rosli left the place and drove in Choo's car. As they were driving along Lorong Sesuai at Bukit Batok Nature Park, Choo and Rosli were allegedly arguing about a sum of S$500 that Choo owed to Rosli, and as the argument grew heated, Rosli grew angrier and therefore punched and kicked Choo inside the car, before it temporarily subsided with the pair agreeing to discuss the matter outside the car.
After alighting the car, Choo proclaimed she wanted to call the police and it led to Rosli assaulting Choo again and he also snatched Choo's mobile phone. This time round, Rosli punched and kicked Choo several times, and he also inflicted several blows to Choo's head, and Choo grew unconscious. The kicks caused by Rosli to her head resulted in traumatic head injuries that resulted in the eventual death of 47-year-old Choo Xue Ying. After abandoning Choo's body in the bushes of the park's forested area, Rosli drove away in Choo's car and abandoned it at Jalan Kubor, and he also stole Choo's handbag, phone and laptop, and Choo's cheques, which were used by Rosli and Jelly to cheat Adros.