Death of Annie Ee
Annie Ee Yu Lian was a Singaporean waitress who was abused for eight months before she died on 13 April 2015 at the age of 26. Ee's abusers were her 31-year-old childhood friend, Tan Hui Zhen, and Tan's 38-year-old husband, Pua Hak Chuan, who were both her flatmates in the couple's four-room Woodlands flat. The cause of death was certified to be acute fat embolism as a result of the beatings Ee received from Tan and Pua. It was also revealed that Annie Ee had an intellectual disability, which was one of the factors behind the public outcry against the couple.
Both Tan and Pua were initially charged with murder, which carries either life imprisonment or the death penalty in Singapore. However, after the investigations revealed that the couple had no motive or intention to cause Ee's death, the prosecution reduced the murder charges to those of voluntarily causing grievous hurt with a dangerous weapon. After receiving the couple's guilty plea, the High Court sentenced Tan to 16 years and six months' imprisonment, and Pua to 14 years' imprisonment with 14 strokes of the cane.
After sentencing, the public felt that the sentences were too light due to the highly aggravated nature of the case, and the government of Singapore eventually made amendments to the existing laws to ensure harsher punishments for offenders who commit crimes against disabled people, to prevent similar cases in the future.
Background and case
Background of the victim
Born in Singapore in 1988, Annie Ee Yu Lian was the eldest of five children in her family--she had two younger brothers, Joel and Aaron, and two younger sisters, Shirley and Sharon.In 2001, when Ee was 13 years old, she first met 17-year-old Tan Hui Zhen at the clothing store owned by Ee's mother; Tan was an employee working at the store at the time she first met Ee. According to news reports, Tan, who has three other siblings, grew up with an unhappy childhood, as she was abused by her father, brother and ex-boyfriend. She was educated up to her third year in her secondary school, and she often displayed self-harm symptoms as a result of the abuse she endured.
Ee and Tan became friends after they first met, and they maintained regular contact with each other throughout until 2011. In late 2013, Ee re-kindled her friendship with Tan. Ee, who became estranged from her family, decided to go live with Tan in her Woodlands flat. By then, Tan, who became a housewife, was already married to her husband, Pua Hak Chuan, a storeman who was five years older than his wife. It was revealed in media reports that Ee was not driven out but moved out on her own accord, because she wanted to seek her own freedom outside home, given that her family was overprotective of her due to her intellectual disability. Ee's family were also wary of Tan and warned Ee to prevent contacting her as they suspected her to be manipulative, but their advice fell on deaf ears.
Abuse of Annie Ee
Initially, while living in their flat, Ee had an amicable and friendly relationship with both Tan and Pua, whom she considered her sister and brother-in-law respectively, and she even helped Tan do some housework. Tan and Pua likewise showed concern for Ee's welfare during her stay at their flat, and they did not charge her for rent. However, the happiness was short-lived and things took a turn for the worse. In August 2014, both Tan and Pua discovered a bedbug infestation, which they suspected was caused by Ee since it happened after she moved into their flat. They blamed Ee for this and began to physically abuse her daily. Over time, the beatings increased by duration and intensity, under the pretext of bad behaviour on Ee's part, and they even wanted her to verbalise her "mistakes" and declare she would "change". Both Tan and Pua used a 1 kg roll of shrink wrap to beat her on the buttocks, where the injuries would be less visible. This led to blisters forming on the buttocks, which required first aid to stop the bleeding.The couple took away Ee's $1,200 salary, and they only gave her an allowance of $50 every week, which was later cut down to $30. They also charged her for rent, starting from $150 a month, before they gradually increased the rent to $550. At a restaurant where Ee worked, her colleagues began to notice bruises on her body, arms, face and neck. They became concerned and inquired as to what happened, but Ee remained silent, except for one occasion where she told her supervisor it was her family who did it. The neighbours also began to notice something was wrong with Ee. One of them witnessed Ee's injuries but did not talk to her despite suspecting the couple was responsible, as he did not have enough evidence and the couple appeared to be gangsters. During the time she was abused by Tan and Pua, Annie Ee remained silent and did not seek help for her predicament, which was also partly due to her intellectual disability.
Death of Annie Ee
On the morning of 12 April 2015, Annie Ee used a pair of scissors to cut her wrist but Tan took the scissors away from her. By then, Ee was weak with multiple bruises, blisters and some fractures on her ribs and vertebrae. The beatings also caused Ee to have difficulty walking, standing and breathing, and she additionally became incontinent during the final days leading to her death. Within the past few weeks, both Tan and Pua noticed that Ee had gotten considerably weak and decide to not beat her to allow her to recuperate, and they kept measuring her blood pressure and heart rate to check if there was anything abnormal. They began to abuse her again two days later. The couple also did not seek medical help for Ee during the period of time leading up to Ee's death.Later that day, upon seeing Ee lying in her own urine, both Tan and Pua accused her of urinating on the floor in order to catch their attention. As the couple reprimanded Ee, who was utterly exhausted, while she was slumped onto a chair, they decided to punish her for her "bad attitude". Despite Ee's pleas to stop, Tan swung the shrink wrap roll against her back multiple times. Afterwards, Ee was ordered to go back inside her room but she lost balance and fell onto the floor. Pua then used the shrink wrap to hit her again as he told Ee to quit putting on an act, and smashed a dustbin onto Ee's body before he stopped.
The assault proved fatal. The next morning, 13 April 2015, 26-year-old Annie Ee Yu Lian died in her sleep as a result of her injuries.
Sentencing of the accused
Arrest and murder charge
On the morning of 13 April 2015, upon discovering that Annie Ee had died, Pua removed a layer of plastic from the shrink wrap and flushed it down the toilet to get rid of both his and his wife's fingerprints. Tan called her brother and said that Ee had committed suicide; eventually, she called the police. Both Tan and Pua initially told the police that Ee was very clumsy and would often cause injury to herself. Tan added that Ee often jumped up and landed on her buttocks for no apparent reason. However, when Ee's injuries were discovered during the forensic pathologist's examination, the couple eventually confessed to the police that they were responsible for assaulting her.Both 31-year-old Tan Hui Zhen and 35-year-old Pua Hak Chuan were arrested and, on 15 April 2015, they were charged in court with murder, an offence that warrants the death penalty in Singapore if found guilty. A third murder suspect and 21-year-old polytechnic student Ng Yao Wei was separately charged for the unrelated killing of his 26-year-old brother Yao Cheng on the same day as both Tan and Pua. A week later, on 22 April 2015, both Pua and Tan were remanded at Changi Prison's Complex Medical Centre and Changi Women's Prison respectively for psychiatric assessments.
An autopsy was conducted and it revealed that prior to her death, Annie Ee sustained a total of 12 fractured ribs, seven fractured vertebrae, a ruptured stomach, and her body was covered in blisters and bruises. The cause of Ee's death was an acute fat embolism, which was a result of the multiple beatings Ee received from the couple before her death. The condition, which rarely causes death, occurred when the blunt force impact from the beatings landed on Ee's buttocks, which led to fatty tissue entering her bloodstream and traveling to her lungs, which led to a blockage of the blood vessels, hindering the circulation of oxygen in her lungs, leading to cardiac and respiratory failure.
Reduction of murder charges and trial
Eventually, after the investigations revealed that the couple had no intention to cause the victim's death, the prosecution decided to reduce the charges of murder to voluntarily causing grievous hurt with a dangerous weapon, which does not warrant the death penalty. On 27 November 2017, the couple stood trial in the High Court, with the case presided over by High Court judge Hoo Sheau Peng. At the trial, Tan pleaded guilty to two charges of causing grievous hurt with a weapon and two charges of causing grievous hurt, while Pua similarly pleaded guilty to two charges of causing grievous hurt with a weapon, as well as a third charge of causing hurt. They were both convicted after submitting their pleas of guilt to the judge.In their closing submissions, the prosecution sought a jail term of 14 years and 12 strokes of the cane for Pua, while they argued for a longer sentence of at least 15 years for Tan, on the basis that Tan had committed more severe offences and displayed a greater culpability than her husband. Describing the death of Annie Ee as "an appalling case of abuse and cruelty", Deputy Public Prosecutor April Phang and her colleague Claire Poh stated that Ee came to the couple's home to find a sense of home and family, but both Tan and Pua did not accept her into their home out of altruistic reasons, and they exploited her for her trust and money. DPP Phang also reminded the court that Ee was subjected to psychological and physical torture for eight months, and her "excruciating" death occurred as a result of the couple's "use of gratuitous violence and senseless brutality". For the above reasons, the prosecution asked for Tan and Pua to be severely punished by law.
During the mitigation plea, Tan Hui Zhen's lawyer Josephus Tan said that Ee's death was "unexpected and unintended", and a case of "discipline gone wrong". He also submitted to the court the psychiatric reports from Dr Kenneth Koh of the Institute of Mental Health, in which Dr Koh certified that Tan had multiple psychiatric conditions, including borderline personality disorder and depression, which gave rise to her complex mental state and diminished responsibility, which was partly aggravated by the three miscarriages Tan had in the past. Cory Wong, who represented Pua Hak Chuan in the trial, argued in mitigation that Pua was not the principal offender and only went along with his wife's actions to appease her. The prosecution responded that Tan's psychiatric disorders should not be given much weight in deciding the sentence, and they urged the court that the sentence imposed on the defendants must reflect the condemnation of society for the "monstrous cruelty and mindless violence".