The Best I Could by Subhas Anandan

Author:Subhas Anandan
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
ISBN: 9789814677882
Publisher: Marshall Cavendish

THIRTEEN

TOOK LENG HOW

The Man Who Should Not Have Been Hanged

By all accounts, Huang Na was a normal eight-year-old who was a familiar sight at the Pasir Panjang Wholesale Centre where her parents, both Chinese nationals, worked. She was known to be friendly and respectful of anyone she met. On October 10, 2004, the lovable girl went missing.

Her mother was believed to be away in China at the time and the girl was being looked after by a friend. The initial reaction of her parents was possibly not to be too worried. After all, Huang Na was rumoured to have once returned to her parents’ village in China on her own. But as the days passed, her mother became more frantic and her worry spread like wildfire to members of the public. A massive search that stretched to Malaysia was conducted. Hundreds of volunteers started looking for her in isolated places. In Johor, taxi drivers joined in the search. The media ran stories of the missing girl almost daily. But people didn’t have to look too far from the wholesale centre to find her. Three weeks after Huang Na first went missing, police found a brown cardboard box sealed with adhesive tape in undergrowth at the nearby Telok Blangah Hill Park. It contained her decomposed body, wrapped in several layers of plastic. The police couldn’t immediately confirm if it was Huang Na’s body but did so later.

Twenty-two-year old Malaysian Took Leng How was initially classified as helping the police with their investigations. He had been the last person seen talking to Huang Na before she disappeared. Took, a vegetable packer at the wholesale centre, was a former colleague of Huang Na’s mother, Huang Shuying. He lived in the same flat with both mother and daughter and was said to be very close to them. Indeed, people had some reservations about Madam Huang in the weeks after the body was found and when details of the case were starting to surface. She had an earlier conviction for overstaying in Singapore but managed to return to Singapore with a false passport and as Huang Na’s guardian. Because she had burnt all her fingers and thumbs, her fingerprints could not be matched when she arrived in Singapore the second time with a different passport. Some people suspected that the girl was “adopted”. In any case, Took was charged with sexually assaulting Huang Na, then kicking and stomping on her until she died.

Took’s case began on July 11, 2005. The court was told by public prosecutors that he had initially lied to the police during the search for Huang Na and given them the slip. He had agreed to take a lie-detector test which was to be held on the morning of October 21, 2004. The night before the test, he told police officers that he had the contact number of someone who he claimed would lead them to Huang Na. He asked to return to his flat where this person’s mobile phone number was kept.

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