On 13 March 1997, at one of the HDB flats in King George's Avenue, Kallang, Singapore, 53-year-old Sivapackiam Veerappan Rengasamy was discovered dead in her bedroom by her son. Sivapackiam was found to have been stabbed three times in the neck and she died from the wounds. During police investigations, Sivapackiam's tenant Gerardine Andrew, a 36-year-old prostitute, told police that on the day of the murder, she returned to the flat and saw three people attacking her landlady and robbing her, and they threatened her to leave after briefly holding her hostage.
The three suspects - Kamala Rani Balakrishnan, her brother Mansoor Abdullah and Mansoor's friend Nazar Mohamed Kassim - were all arrested within the next few days. It was determined from the trio's confessions that the mastermind of the robbery was actually Gerardine, the same tenant who rented a room from Sivapackiam. Apparently, Gerardine was unsatisfied with the tensions between her and her landlady and thus asked the three to assault and rob Sivapackiam, but Gerardine insisted she never intended to kill her landlady. Gerardine and the three suspects were all charged with murder.
Eventually, the two men - Nazar and Mansoor - were convicted of murder and sentenced to death while Gerardine was sentenced to eight years' imprisonment for culpable homicide not amounting to murder in their joint trial. However, the prosecution's subsequent appeal led to Gerardine being sentenced to death for the original charge of murder, and she was executed alongside the two men in February 1999. Kamala was the sole person out of the four to escape the gallows after she was sentenced to seven years' imprisonment for culpable homicide and conspiracy to commit robbery in a separate trial.
Murder and investigation On 13 March 1997, at around 8.20am in the morning, Selvan Nagalingam, who lived together with his 53-year-old mother Sivapackiam Veerappan Rengasamy at their flat in King George's Avenue, Kallang, left the flat for work. Selvan returned home two hours and ten minutes later after his eldest brother told him he could not get in contact with their mother. Upon arriving, Selvan found his mother's lifeless corpse in her bedroom.
After Selvan contacted the police, Inspector Yeo Bee Poh of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) led her team of detectives to investigate the case. Among the witnesses Inspector Yeo interviewed, one of them was 34-year-old Indian prostitute Gerardine Andrew (alias Maria), who rented a room at Sivapackiam's flat for two and a half months prior to the case. Gerardine told police that earlier on, when she returned home after visiting her son, she encountered three robbers, whom she described as an Indian female and two Indian males, attacking her landlady and demanding her to hand over her valuables. One of the men threatened Gerardine with a knife and asked her to search the flat for any valuables but Gerardine failed to locate any. Hence, the robbers forced Gerardine to leave the flat and threatened her to not contact the police. Despite Gerardine's status as a witness at this point, Inspector Yeo suspected Gerardine due to her nervousness and unusual body language during questioning.
After Gerardine's witness statement, the police arrested the three suspected robbers, and they were all charged with murder. The first robber to be arrested was a 21-year-old unemployed man Mansoor Abdullah on 14 March 1997, while his 22-year-old sister and prostitute Kamala Rani Balakrishnan was caught at the Woodlands Checkpoint on 17 March 1997. The third and final robber to be caught was 26-year-old coffee shop assistant Nazar Mohamed Kassim on 16 May 1997. All the three robbers confessed to the robbery and assault of the landlady, with both Mansoor and Nazar being deemed responsible for the fatal assault of Sivapackiam. However, all three robbers stated that it was Gerardine who planned the robbery and assault, and was the mastermind of their crimes. Gerardine was arrested after Mansoor's capture and like the trio, she was charged with murder and she later confessed she did mastermind the robbery. It was revealed that Gerardine were friends with the trio, and prior to the case, both Nazar and Mansoor were homeless and slept at the streets of Farrer Park Stadium. Mansoor was also revealed to be wanted by the Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) for desertion of his conscription duties.
Trial proceedings Trial and sentence of Kamala
On 20 October 1997, one of the four conspirators - Kamala Rani Balakrishnan - was the first to be tried for the robbery and assault of Sivapackiam Veerappan Rengasamy. By then, Kamala's murder charge was reduced to culpable homicide not amounting to murder. She was also charged with having taken part in the conspiracy with the other three suspects to commit the robbery and assault on Sivapackiam. Kamala pleaded guilty to her lower charges and was sentenced to seven years' imprisonment.
Murder trial of Gerardine, Nazar and Mansoor On 12 January 1998, the remaining three suspects - Gerardine Andrew, Mansoor Abdullah and Nazar Mohamed Kassim - claimed trial for murder in the High Court. High Court judge Kan Ting Chiu was the presiding judge of the case, and the prosecution was led by Deputy Public Prosecutor (DPP) Bala Reddy of the Attorney-General's Chambers (AGC). Edward D'Souza represented Mansoor as his lawyer, while Christina Goh acted as Gerardine's defence counsel, and Nazar engaged David Rasif as his lawyer for the trial.
The summary of the events based on the four suspects' confessions revealed that during her time as Sivapackiam's tenant, Gerardine had arguments with Sivapackiam over several issues (including her rent and limitations of her use of the telephone) and the frequent verbal abuse Sivapackiam spewed at Gerardine for her occupation and behaviour, which led to the hampering of the good relationship Gerardine originally shared with her landlady. After one particularly intense quarrel with her landlady, Gerardine met up with her friends Kamala, Mansoor and Nazar, telling them her troubles and distress. At that point, Gerardine asked her three friends to assault her landlady, and she also promised them they could steal the landlady's jewellery, cash and gold accessories. Although Gerardine and Mansoor confirmed that the plan was to beat up the landlady, Nazar however, claimed Gerardine told them to kill Sivapackiam.
Mansoor's account of the crime was that on the day he came to Sivapackiam's flat, he and Nazar were supposed to pretend to be potential tenants looking to rent a room from Sivapackiam in order to enter her flat to execute their robbery and assault plan while Kamala and Gerardine would wait for the men near the staircases outside the flat. Mansoor said both he and Nazar received gloves from Gerardine to avoid leaving fingerprints at the crime scene. Upon entry, Mansoor and Nazar restrained the landlady in her bedroom, and Mansoor used a thin iron chain to strangle Sivapackiam, who was still struggling. Nazar, meanwhile, used a clay bowl to hit Sivapackiam's head and even took out a knife to stab Sivapackiam three times on the neck, and the stabbing led to the death of 53-year-old Sivapackiam. Mansoor said in his defence he never had the intention to cause death or at least fatal injuries to Sivapackiam, and he only wanted to rob the landlady of her jewellery and cash. He also stated that after the landlady was killed, he and the others searched the flat but could not find the valuables owned by the landlady and hence, they escaped the flat empty-handed. The escape of the four robbers were witnessed by Sivapackiam's neighbour Ngo Ah Poo and Ngo's younger god-sister Tay Cheow Tee, who both became the prosecution's witnesses.
From Gerardine's account, she stated that aside from the occasional conflicts they had with each other, she and Sivapackiam normally shared a good relationship with each other. Gerardine also said she never wanted to cause the death of her landlady despite having solicited the robbery plan and assault, and she only wanted the landlady to be beaten up and robbed of her valuables, and also said she did not know Nazar had taken a knife with him to commit the robbery. However, the prosecution raised the fact that while Gerardine genuinely did not intend to cause Sivapackiam's death, the fact that her direction of the robbery plan and assault having led to the landlady's death demonstrated that there was an intention to cause not merely simple injury, but also serious harm to the landlady, and her alleged awareness of dangerous weapons in Nazar's possession should be factors pointing to Gerardine's guilt for murder under the law.
Lastly, from Nazar's account, he did not deny stabbing Sivapackiam to her death, and his account of what happened before the assault was similar to Mansoor. He claimed he only took the knife just to threaten the landlady during the robbery. However, in court, Nazar additionally stated he suffered from temporary insanity and a mental blackout during the course of stabbing, as a result of headaches caused by a childhood traumatic injury to his head. His poor academic performance at school and dysfunctional family background (Nazar was raised by foster mother since young) were also factors cited by his lawyer to show the aftermath of Nazar's childhood accident and how he gone astray. However, the prosecution rebutted that Nazar had full control of his mental faculties and able to coherently and clearly describe the sequence of events on the day of the murder, and the prosecution's psychiatrist Chan Keen Loong confirmed there was no abnormality of mind exhibited by Nazar during the commission of the offence.Public Prosecutor v Mansoor s/o Abdullah and Others, High Court (Singapore).
Murder trial verdict
After a 17-day trial, High Court judge Kan Ting Chiu decided on his verdict and delivered it on 6 February 1998.
In the case of Mansoor, Justice Kan stated that Mansoor may not have the intention to cause death, but he and Nazar together shared the common intention to rob and assault the landlady, and in furtherance of both the men's common intention, Nazar intentionally inflicted the knife injuries on Sivapackiam and the stabbing led to her death. Based on the legal concept of common intention, Mansoor should share the same culpability with Nazar for the offence of murder and thus, Justice Kan found Mansoor guilty of murder.
In the case of Gerardine, Justice Kan accepted that Gerardine did not have the intention to solicit the murder of her landlady, and had no intention to cause Sivapackiam's death, based on the fact that she did not tell her accomplices to cause death or serious injury to Sivapackiam. He also accepted that Gerardine was not aware of Nazar carrying the knife with him prior to the robbery, after he found the inconsistency between Nazar and Mansoor's testimonies on whether she was aware of the knife. Justice Kan stated that since there was no intention on Gerardine's part to cause Sivapackiam to die despite having directed the robbery and assault plan, he decided to dismiss the murder charge against Gerardine and convict her of culpable homicide not amounting to murder (or manslaughter).