2019 Orchard Towers murder
The 2019 Orchard Towers murder was a murder case where a group of men killed 31-year-old Satheesh Noel Gobidass, who sustained several knife wounds and died at Orchard Towers on 2 July 2019. The murder was not the first case that involved the Orchard Towers. In 2002, the case of British expatriate Michael McCrea killing his friend and another person before disposing of the bodies at Orchard Towers was another that associated the Orchard Towers with murder. In the end, McCrea was sentenced by the courts to serve 24 years in prison after he pleaded guilty to culpable homicide not amounting to murder.
Initially, all seven of the offenders, consisting of one female and six males, were charged with murder, but eventually, six of the accused faced various lesser charges of assault, consorting with an armed person in public, unruly behaviour in public and obstruction of justice. These lower charges were finalized after the six's respective sentencing phases, which resulted in one of them receiving a conditional warning while the remaining five serving jail terms between one month and four years and nine months, in addition to caning for two of the male members. The seventh and final suspect, Tan Sen Yang, who was identified to be the one stabbing Satheesh to death, was convicted of murder, and jailed for life with caning on 25 April 2024.
Background
Satheesh Noel Gobidass
Born on 13 February 1988, Satheesh Noel Gobidass was a Singaporean chemist of ethnic Indian descent who was married with two children: a ten-year-old son and four-year-old daughter at the time he died.According to his friends, neighbours and family, Satheesh was known to be a kind and helpful person to people around him, and was close to his family. A 33-year-old childcare teacher and some of Satheesh's friends remembered Satheesh as a loving, caring father who loved his children dearly and he often found time to fetch his daughter from school. Neighbours who lived in Satheesh's neighbourhood also stated that he would help them take heavy bags.
An online personality, who was a former classmate of Satheesh from secondary school, described Satheesh as an energetic individual who was a bit “naughty” but often a thoughtful person with a good heart. She remembered an incident where she was heavily pregnant at one point, Satheesh helped her open the door to a GrabCar and took care of her then toddler-aged son. Other than that, they often shared friendly verbal exchanges whenever they met each other in the neighbourhood where they resided.
Another friend fondly remembered Satheesh in a Facebook post as a good drinking buddy and friend with whom he often enjoyed drinking and eating nasi padang together, and smoking. He stated Satheesh was forgetful at times and before his death, he even left his favourite hat at the bar he frequented at Orchard Towers. the hat was later retrieved and returned to his wife shortly after Satheesh died.
Death at Orchard Towers
On the early morning of 2 July 2019, at Orchard Towers, a fight broke out between Satheesh and a group of seven people, with four of these members - 27-year-old Tan Sen Yang, 26-year-old Joel Tan Yun Sheng, 26-year-old Ang Da Yuan and 22-year-old Natalie Siow Yu Zhen - participating in the fight with Satheesh. The other three members - 25-year-old Loo Boon Chong, 26-year-old Chan Jia Xing and 22-year-old Tan Hong Sheng - tried to stop their first four friends from attacking Satheesh but to no avail.According to court documents, the group of seven, led by Tan Sen Yang, had a fight with another group earlier on, and Tan Sen Yang actually used a foldable karambit knife to slash a security officer who attempted to intervene. Being one of the bystanders who witnessed the fight, Satheesh went to the entrance of the Orchard Towers to confront the group of seven after he followed them down a lift, thus sparking a physical conflict between the group and Satheesh. At the end of the fight, Satheesh suffered several knife wounds on the neck and jaw as a result of Tan Sen Yang, who was the only one armed of all the seven, using the karambit knife to slash and stab Satheesh while punching him. One of these neck wounds was fatal and it caused Satheesh to eventually bleed to death despite the intervention of members of the public. Around an hour after he was stabbed, 31-year-old Satheesh Noel Gobidass was pronounced dead at around 7.30 am in Tan Tock Seng Hospital. His funeral was held at Teban Gardens Road.
After the attack, the seven members went their separate ways. Among them, Tan Sen Yang and Loo Boon Chong went to Loo's flat, where Tan changed his clothes and took his shower, and Loo also disposed of Tan's bloodstained shirt down the rubbish chute. All seven of them would later be arrested for the alleged murder of Satheesh Noel Gobidass, with some have voluntarily surrendered to the police at one of the members Joel Tan's coordination.
Pre-trial investigations
Arrests and indictments
After the crime was reported, the police were called in and within 12 hours, the seven suspects were arrested in varied locations all over Singapore; a female friend who accompanied the group of seven at the time of the murder was also caught but subsequently released. The seven arrested members - Tan Sen Yang, Joel Tan, Tan Hong Sheng, Ang Da Yuan, Natalie Seow, Chan Jia Xing, and Loo Boon Chong - were all charged with murder. As the offence of murder warrants the punishment of either life imprisonment or the death penalty in Singapore, the seven suspects will potentially be sentenced to death if found guilty.Court proceedings also revealed that one of the members, Ang Da Yuan, was previously jailed for three weeks each in 2017 and 2018 for voluntarily causing hurt. He was also put on probation in 2010 for behaving in a disorderly manner in public. Another member, Tan Hong Sheng, was also revealed to have two previous convictions for violent offences and possession of weapons and had undergone both a jail term at a juvenile home and reformative training in 2011 and 2016 respectively. First-hand investigations also revealed that Tan Sen Yang was also suspected to be involved in several past violent offences.
After they were charged with murder, the male members were remanded at Changi Medical Complex for psychiatric assessment, while Natalie Siow, the sole female suspect, was remanded at Changi Women's Prison for three weeks for psychiatric assessment. No bail was offered for all seven of them.
Reduction of murder charges
A week after their arrests, three of the seven members - Loo Boon Chong, Chan Jia Xing and Tan Hong Sheng - had their murder charges reduced. As they, together with the other members, were aware of Tan being armed with the murder weapon during their meeting before the incident at Orchard Towers, the three men faced fresh charges of consorting with a person carrying an offensive weapon in a public place. They were all released on bail which cost between S$15,000 and S$20,000.Later, in October 2019, the murder charge against Natalie Siow was reduced to voluntarily causing hurt, and she also faced new charges of consorting an armed person and unruly behaviour in public. After the reduction of her original murder charge, Siow was offered bail of S$15,000 and hence she was released after spending three and a half months in remand for murder. Eventually, in February 2020, both Joel Tan and Ang Da Yuan had their murder charges lowered to assault, and they were each offered bail of S$15,000.
The reduction of the murder charges against the first six suspects left the seventh and final suspect Tan Sen Yang as the only person left facing a murder charge. In October 2020, Tan Sen Yang's case has been moved to the High Court, where people stand trial for capital cases like murder within Singapore's jurisdiction.
Tan Hong Sheng’s escape and recapture
A date was scheduled for three of the members - Loo Boon Chong, Chan Jia Xing and Tan Hong Sheng - to return to court. However, on 29 August 2019, only Loo and Chan turned up in court, while Tan was discovered to be missing. Tan's mother thus called the police, and a warrant of arrest was issued for Tan's whereabouts. Tan remained on the run for a month before he was re-arrested on 27 September 2019. Tan was also charged with committing another crime of rioting while out on bail in August 2019; he had teamed up with three other men at Central Mall to attack the 30-year-old Desmond Neo Zhao Fu, who was also charged with rioting like his attackers.Additional charges against Tan Sen Yang
On 1 October 2021, Tan was hauled back to court to face ten fresh charges of causing hurt in unrelated incidents. It was revealed that Tan was involved in several violent incidents, and two of them, including the amputation of a woman's finger and permanent disfigurement of a man, occurred minutes prior to him fighting and killing Satheesh Noel Gobidass.After this, Tan spent another two years in remand before his trial occurred.
Sentencing of the seven accused
For a period of more than four years, the seven accused were taken to court between March 2020 and April 2024 for the charges preferred against them over the Orchard Towers incident.Joel Tan and Ang Da Yuan
In their trial, the first two members - 26-year-old Joel Tan Yun Sheng and 26-year-old Ang Da Yuan - pleaded guilty to lower charges of voluntarily causing hurt to the victim. Additionally, Ang also pleaded guilty to consorting with a person possessing an offensive weapon. As a result, on 4 March 2020, Joel Tan was sentenced to four weeks' imprisonment, while Ang was sentenced to eight months' imprisonment and six strokes of the cane.The district court also took into consideration the decision by Joel Tan to convince the other members to surrender to the police, which was argued by Tan's lawyer Josephus Tan. Ang's lawyers - Anil Sandhu and Mohamed Arshad - also submitted that their client was remorseful of causing the death of Satheesh, and Ang stated he want to repent for what he did and take good care of his family after his release.