Murders are tragic, shocking and sometimes outright bizarre. One of the most infamous cases in recent history is of course the murder of Mongolian beauty Altantuya Shariibuu, 28, who disappeared in Kuala Lumpur in 2006.
Police discovered bone fragments, later confirmed to be hers, in a forest in Puncak Alam, Shah Alam in October that year. Two members of the elite Malaysian Special Action Force (Unit Tindakan Khas) were arrested for her murder. Well known political analyst Abdul Razak Baginda was charged with abetting the murder.
This set off what went on to become possibly the biggest, most sensational murder trial in Malaysian history.
Here, we revisit six other cases that dominated headlines in Malaysia.
1. Plaza Damas – sex, foul body odour and mystery men
Yes, the headlines describe the clues in the shocking murder of 22-year-old Noritta Samsudin, a part-time model and business executive more than 10 years ago.
The young woman was killed at the Puncak Prima Galleria Condominium in Sri Hartamas in 2003 and despite many clues found during the investigation, the case remains unsolved. She was strangled and found naked, with hands and feet bound with wires.
Noritta shared the condominium with two housemates. On the night she was killed, one of the housemates told police that they saw a man fleeing the condominium and out of the building.
A man with foul body odour. And a second (or the same?) man was seen walking towards the guardhouse shortly after Noritta’s body was found in her bedroom.
Noritta had a towel stuffed in her mouth and a bolster case wrapped over her head. While sexual intercourse had taken place, investigators could not confirm if it was consensual or forced. DNA samples were taken and several were found on Noritta’s body, with some being unidentified.
The findings then led the police to arrest 40-year-old Hanif Basree, a Shah Alam City Council engineer for the murder of Noritta. He was said to be the last person to have sexual intercourse with Noritta and possibly the last person to be with her on the night she was murdered.
Security guards claimed they had seen them entering the condominium car park together, with the guards sharing details about the pair’s attire that night. But after repeated questioning, Hanif’s defence team debunked the guard’s testimonies, leaving the case murky again.
Motive? It could have been jealousy or revenge. No one one knows. Hanif was acquitted after the court found gaps in the evidence, with the judgement noting that Hanif did not have a strong and foul body odour and that just his DNA alone on her body was insufficient to prove he was the killer.
2. Victoria Institution and Ethel Proudlock
Victoria Institution, modelled after the prestigious Raffles Institution in Singapore, was the site of several historic events. One being the place where the Japanese held their first surrender ceremony in September 1945 and the other, a sensational murder which happened way back in 1911.
We dug around to find records from Badan Warisan, revealing that the school was the site of a murder at the headmaster’s bungalow. A case that was later immortalised by Somerset Maugham in his work and later adapted for the film, “The Letter”.
Ethel Proudlock was the young Eurasian wife of VI’s headmaster William Proudlock. One evening when her husband was having dinner with a colleague, Ethel shot dead engineer William Steward. Steward had taken a rickshaw to visit Ethel that evening.
The rickshaw boy who was given instructions to wait outside, heard two shots and was astounded to see Steward stumble out of the house. Ethel followed and fired another four bullets into Steward’s doomed body.
Excerpts from the Daily News on July 1911 reproduced here, of the rickshaw boy Tan Ng Tee’s testimony in court when questioned by the public prosecutor:
“I waited for the tuan with my back to the house. After waiting about ten minutes I heard ‘pop!’, ‘pop!’, ‘pop!’ I got out of my rikisha, and saw the tuan running away from the verandah.”
“The house was in darkness.”
The young woman claimed she acted in self-defence, having to protect herself when Steward allegedly forced himself on to her.
Another version of the events involved a story about how Ethel was in love with Steward but was heartbroken when he broke off the relationship on that fateful night. Ethel served her sentence in Pudu jail and was later pardoned by the Sultan of Selangor.
She moved back to England and later Canada, she died in the 1970s. The bungalow was at the first site of the school, near the Jalan Bandar police station, but has since been demolished after VI moved to its present location in 1929.
3. Black magic and a brown Proton Saga
Power, money, jealousy and love. All winning ingredients for a juicy story. Except that for poor Hasleza Ishak, this was not fiction.
It was a story that cost her life.
The death of this model cum actress would not have been so prominent, if she had not been the second wife of a member of the royal family – the Raja DiHilir of Perak, Datuk Seri Raja Jaafar Raja Muda Musa.
In October 2002, this young woman was abducted, strangled and believed to have had her feet and hands bound before she was thrown off a bridge. Her body was found near Km63 along Jalan Sumpitan near Taiping late one night. Court records showed that she was kidnapped by men who drove a brown Proton Saga, with witnesses testifying that they saw a police sticker on the left side of that car.
The young actress, a divorcee with two children, had married the prince earlier in the same year. His first wife, Raja Puan Muda Perak Datin Seri Raja Nor Mahani Raja Shahar was also briefly called in to assist with the inquiry.
The court heard how the first wife had requested bomohs to remove a spell which she believed was causing her husband to act strangely towards her. It gets more bizarre as it was shared that headless birds began emerging in the palace grounds, while big flies followed the princess around.
This was enough for her to believe that an evil spell was placed on her. Here’s an excerpt from when the judge questioned bomoh Rahim Ismail, tasked to remove the spell using the ‘buffalo nose string method.’ This is done by soaking a string in a mineral water bottle and squeezing a few drops of that water into the prince’s coffee, making him more loving towards the consort.
Judge: “What is the name of the string?”
Rahim: “It is put through the nostrils of the buffalo, so it is called buffalo nose string.”
Judge: “So the wife can make the husband obey her and likewise?”
Rahim: “Yes, but mostly it is women who ask for this to be done, because it is usually men who stray.”
Even the Malaysian police had called it a ‘crime of passion’. But, the royal consort insisted she had nothing to do with the killing, and a carpenter, fisherman, bomoh and palace aide were charged with her murder.
These men were each sentenced to 20 years of jail. The palace aide, Tengku Aristonsjah and bomoh Rahim Ismail were freed after the courts had absolved them of being involved in Hasleza’s death, as the court found no credible evidence to link them.
4. Beauty queen slain off the Federal Highway
Love triangles seem to be the ingredients for scandalous murder cases. And in this one, it is no different. A spot on Malaysia’s first highway by the former Subang airport, was the site of a brutal murder, which today is believed to be unsolved.
In 1979, a Miss Malaysia runner-up Jean Perera Sinappa was stabbed to death in a white Fiat 125 car parked at this spot. Her brother-in-law Karthigesu Sivapakiam was found unconscious near the vehicle. It was a sad ending the beauty queen who nearly a year before, lost her husband Sinappa Sivapakiam in a car accident.
Jean and Karthigesu were on the way home after dinner at Abad Century Hotel in Petaling Jaya. Karthigesu claimed that he had stopped the car by the side of the road to relieve himself and was knocked unconscious.
Two Malaysian Airlines engineers found the psychology lecturer by the car, however police had detained him after finding no evidence of injuries from the alleged attack.
Investigation into Karthigesu’s house showed up love letters between Jean and Sri Lankan Dr Narada Warnasurya, some unsent but having details indicating an intimate affair.
The court heard how it was possible that revenge had been on Karthigesu’s mind; either from his love for Jean or stemming from his defence of his brother’s honour as the letters were written when Sinappa was still alive.
Karthigesu was charged with murder but freed after an appeal. Investigation of homicide at that time didn’t involve DNA testing or sophisticated forensic techniques, but it did involved police force’s canine unit. However, despite the lengthy investigation and 38-day court trial, Jean’s case remains unsolved.
5. He drowned in a Datuk Seri’s swimming pool, and it was someone’s fault
An international student found dead in a swimming pool in Kuala Lumpur. An accident? Not so, but the case remains unsolved. Xu Jian Huang had apparently drowned in a pool at a bungalow off Jalan Mengkuang, near Jalan Ampang, Kuala Lumpur.
The bungalow was owned by his uncle, businessman (ex-Datuk Seri) Koh Kim Teck. The 14-year-old from the Mutiara International Grammar School, was found with his hands and feet bound.
Jian Huang and his brother Jian Fei were sent to Malaysia by their parents who said “all they wanted was to give our sons the best we could in terms of living environment, education and others.”
“That was why we sent them to Malaysia. But who’s to know that Jian Huang would die in such a tragic manner?”
The boy’s father told the court that his son sounded frightened when the boy spoke to him on the phone three days before his death. According to the father, the boy uttered a phrase which was later revealed in court but not recorded after the judge allowed an objection by the defence who argued that such an admission could not be accepted because it was from an emotional witness.
Before making a ruling though, the judge asked the father to reveal what the boy said – which was: “Papa, I’m very frightened. They going to beat me.”
Koh and his two employees – Resty Agpalo and Mohamad Najib Zulkifli – were charged for murder. The High Court acquited all three and the prosecution appealed against that verdict.
At this point, Koh vanished. He was supposedly hospitalised in China during the hearing of the appeal but Chinese media reported that he was never hospitalised and that no medical certificate was issued for him. He remained absent throughout the hearing of the appeal which was later struck out. At the time of the appeal verdict, Koh’s whereabouts remained unknown.
The prosecution argued that the teenager was tortured and killed for stealing RM30,000 belonging to his uncle. A dog chain was used to tie the young boy for the alleged theft, a statement testified by the businessman’s gardener.
6. Ex- wife of Malaysian rock star bludgeoned to death in Banting
They were bludgeoned to death and their bodies set on fire, after a business negotiation turned sour. Their ashes then were scattered in a river near Tanjung Sepat. A shocking murder which gripped Malaysia’s headlines throughout its investigation.
It was a business meeting for cosmetic millionaire Sosilawati Lawiya and her three colleagues. The 47-year-old lived in Gombak and was scheduled to negotiate a land deal on a farm in Banting, some 60 km from Malaysia’s capital.
She was driven by Kamaruddin Shamsuddin and accompanied by lawyer Ahmad Kamil Abdul Karim and bank officer Noorhisham Mohamad to the meeting.
But the ex-wife of Malaysian rock star Nash and her colleagues never returned home from the negotations.
Soon after their disappearance was reported, a bloodied cricket bat was recovered. An eyewitness account recalled how a woman was heard screaming twice at the farm in Banting on the night of the murders.
Three people were arrested: T. Thilaiyalagan, R. Matan, R. Kathavarayan. During their defence Kathavarayan who worked for Pathmanabhan admitted in court that his boss told him, “’If I let them live, they will kill me’. Then he said I would not understand.”
The trial went on for two years. All four were sentenced to death.
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