When Ang first made his report, the police did not know that three hours before Jenny Cheok got in the sampan which took her to her death, Ang had reinsured her life for five days (the previous 14 days’ policy having expired the previous day), for $150,000. When Jenny, a penniless barmaid, made her fatal dive she was covered by nearlv half a million dollars’ worth of insurance, all of which Jenny had willed to Ang’s mother. Ang had, in fact, tried to get $900,000 worth of cover, but failed. Within 24 hours of Jenny’s disappearance, Ang was claiming the half-million dollars from three different insurance companies. The letters were identicaclass="underline" Jenny had met with a tragic accident while scuba-diving off one of the islands south of Singapore at about 5:00 PM on 27 August 1963. The letters went on: ‘She is presumed to have either drowned or been attacked by a shark. Her body is yet to be found.’
In due course, the police were to find evidence indicating that Ang, in July, had been thinking about involving Jenny in an aeroplane ‘accident’. Formerly a member of the Singapore Flying Club, Ang in 1961 held a pilot’s licence. He made inquiries about flying risks, saying that Jenny intended joining the club as a student pilot (he said she was the owner of a poultry farm), and also about personal accident risks. Jenny was eventually insured for $200,000 and Ang paid the premiums and collected the policies. That same day, Sunny Ang went to another insurance company and made inquiries which ended up a few days later in Jenny being insured for another $150,000. He paid the premium. Three weeks before she disappeared in the sea off Pulau Dua, Ang took Jenny to an old and reputable firm of lawyers so that she could make her will. Jenny left everything, her entire estate, which was worthless, and her expectations of nearly half a million dollars once she was dead, to Madam Yeo Bee Neo, whom she had never met. Madam Yeo Bee Neo is Sunny Ang’s mother.
Ang apparently abandoned the aeroplane ‘accident’ idea after getting his girlfriend interested in scuba-diving. This followed his unsuccessful night-time attempt to kill her in a motor ‘accident’. Ang was a skilled driver. He competed in the 1961 Singapore Grand Prix, and had put up a credible performance. On 13 August, he drove Jenny 300 miles to Kuala Lumpur, on the way, Jenny was told, to the Cameron Highlands for a holiday which was to last between a week and a fortnight. Half-way to Kuala Lumpur they stopped for breakfast, which gave both of them stomach ache. They decided to stay in Kuala Lumpur for a couple of days to recover before going on. During the night, or at least some time before the following morning, they apparently abandoned their plans for a holiday, and decided to return to Singapore. But first Sunny Ang went out and bought a 14-day accident policy for Jenny and himself. His was for $30,000. Hers was for $100,000. He paid the premium.
Ang at his trial said Jenny insisted upon him taking out the policy because of his reckless driving on the way up. Only two people knew the truth about what happened that night on the way back. Ang’s story was that on turning a right-hand corner on a dark road he saw a dog lying on the road. He sounded his horn and braked simultaneously. He said he braked very hard. As a result Jenny’s head struck the windscreen, and frosted it. Ang said he veered to the left and hit the earth embankment on the side of the road, the same side of the car where Jenny was sitting.
Jenny had a swelling on her forehead, bruises on the body, and a cut on her lower lip. The car was very badly damaged, mostly on the passenger’s side. It had to be towed away. Ang told the judge he was probably doing 50 mph when he crashed into the earth wall. They returned the rest of the way to Singapore by train. They arrived at 7:00 AM in the morning. Ang sent her home by taxi. He gave her a dollar to see a doctor. At his trial, Ang denied Cheok was naive. He agreed she was simple. He also agreed that no doctor in Singapore would treat a patient for a dollar. He told the Court that he loved Jenny and planned to marry her.
Ang may have planned to kill her the day he met her, in the Odeon Bar, one evening at the end of May, or beginning of July 1963. He may have gone to the bar where she worked, deliberately searching for a suitable victim. He was a bankrupt. He needed money urgently. There is no evidence to substantiate this theory, but it is likely because less than three weeks after Ang had met Jenny he attempted to take out an accident policy on her life worth $200,000.
Suspicions aroused, the insurance company sent out an investigator. Jenny told the insurance man who called upon her that she knew nothing about an insurance policy. But she could remember Ang giving her a paper to sign. In view of this the insurance company decided not to go on with the policy. Ang promptly tried another company which also refused to insure Jenny, the managing director, after conversation with the other company, coming to the conclusion that the application was suspicious and fraudulent. Ang waited a few days before going to the third company. He told this company that Jenny was the proprietress of a chicken farm. With them he insured Jenny’s life for $150,000.
Ten months after Jenny’s disappearance, Sunny Ang was still trying to get the money. He knew the police were making inquiries, but in desperation he telephoned the company. He told them that if they were willing to give him two-thirds of the claim, he would be prepared to sign an affidavit admitting that Jenny had never in fact owned a poultry farm. The company man on the telephone asked Ang where Jenny was. Ang replied, briefly, “At the bottom of the sea!”
With Jenny still alive after the road accident, Ang hurried with his preparations to murder her with the scuba-diving accident. Ang was forced to hurry: all the policies were short-term. He could not afford to keep renewing them. Time was fast running out: days counted. On the morning of 27 August he renewed one of Jenny’s insurances which had expired the previous day, for a further five days, and then took her out to sea, to her death. Part of the equipment Jenny wore when she dived to her doom was a flipper with a heel-strap partly severed by a sharp knife.
More than 16 months elapsed before the police charged Ang with murder. He was arrested on 21 December 1964. He appeared before a magistrate the following day. On the charge sheet, Cheok was described as Jenny Cheok Cheng Kid, aged 22, a divorcee and mother of two. No plea was entered. Ang was remanded in custody.
The Inquiry
Six days later ang again appeared in court and was given a discharge not amounting to an acquittal by the magistrate, Mr Sachi Saurajen. Ang’s counsel, Mr Punch Coomaraswamy, objected to Ang being kept in remand while the prosecution was unable to fix a date for the preliminary inquiry, and successfully applied for Ang’s discharge. Counsel said that the alleged offence was committed 16 months ago, and if the prosecution was still not ready with the case, Ang should be let free. Senior Inspector T. S. Zain told the Court he had received no instructions to fix a date for the preliminary inquiry.
About an hour later Ang was re-arrested, and, the following morning, charged again with the same offence before the same magistrate, Mr Sachi Saurajen. Mr Punch Coomaraswamy again raised objections to the prosecution’s application for a week’s adjournment. He asked the Court to fix a date for the preliminary inquiry. Otherwise his client, he argued, should be released on bail. Senior Inspector T. S. Zain regretted he had no instructions to fix a date for the inquiry, only to ask for a week’s adjournment.
‘In the interests of justice’, the magistrate adjourned the Court until after lunch in order that the Inspector could contact his superiors. When the Court resumed, the deputy public prosecutor, Mr K. S. Rajah, hastily summoned, explained that the prosecution asked for a week’s adjournment because of ‘certain circumstances’. He admitted it was true that the alleged offence had been committed 16 months ago, but Ang, he pointed out, had only been arrested on 21 December, the day before he appeared in Court. Mr Rajah added that the prosecution wanted to ‘tread warily’. The alleged offence he said was not a trivial one. Twenty-live witnesses would be called, and ‘further evidence might come to light’.