After Jenny had fastened on her improvised weight belt, Ang helped her to fasten the Sealion tank on her back, before she jumped into the sea. Ang then gave the boatman his transistor radio, ‘with which to divert himself’, while Sunny attended to the other scuba equipment in the boat. Eight to 10 minutes later, Jenny surfaced, and Sunny Ang assisted her into the boat. Jenny and Sunny chatted for a while, and then Jenny went down again. But this time, before she jumped, Sunny Ang changed her air-tank. Why? Was it really because it had no more air?
Counsel went on to say that after Jenny jumped in, Sunny Ang fastened on his own air-tank. Then he asked the boatman to release the valve. When the boatman did this, Ang heard the sound of escaping air, and so he asked the boatman to turn the valve off. Ang explained that the air-tank was leaking. He took off the air-tank and detached the breathing assembly and told the boatman there was no washer in the outlet of the tank. “This is not such a startling discovery,” Mr Seow told the jury, “because it is immediately apparent to anyone whether the washer in the outlet of the tank is missing or not before the regulator is fixed to the tank. I suggest that Sunny Ang deliberately tampered with his own tank so that the missing washer would provide him with an excuse for not joining Jenny in the sea. This explained his subsequent failure to search for her when Jenny failed to surface.”
Ang and the boatman managed to improvise a washer from the strap of Ang’s own diving mask, which Ang fitted into the outlet of his tank. But, when he released the valve the washer was forced out of place. Ang made another washer, and, with the first, again tried to fit them into the outlet. But the air still escaped. At this stage, Ang stopped working on the tank and tugged at the ‘shot’ rope three times. Ang then asked the boatman in Malay, “Where is that girl?” The boatman replied, “I don’t know.” Ang then pulled in the ‘shot’ rope, but there was no sign of Jenny. Ang asked the boatman to look for air bubbles, but there were none. The boatman advised Ang to go to St John’s Island, to telephone the police, and so off they went. From St John’s Island they went to a neighbouring island to collect some Malay fishermen. Then they went back to the spot when Jenny had disappeared. Repeatedly, the Malays dived in, but Jenny was missing. Ang, meanwhile, remained in the boat. He did not join in the diving for the girl he planned, he said, to marry. Instead, he had a discussion with one Malay fisherman about the buoyancy of the air-tanks and to prove his argument that they would float, he dropped Jenny’s original tank into the sea. It slowly sank out of sight. No efforts were made to recover it. Ang did not ask the divers to get it, and thus this tank, worth $125, disappeared, like Jenny. Counsel pointed out that an air-tank, when it becomes empty, becomes progressively buoyant, and will, therefore float. If Jenny’s original tank had been empty it would have floated and not sunk to the sea-bed. The fact that it did sink proved the tank still contained a lot of air. Why, therefore, did Ang change Jenny’s original tank? Why did he not use this tank, after finding that his own was leaking, to search for Jenny when she failed to surface? What did he do to the second tank he strapped on Jenny’s back?
In response to his telephone call from St John’s Island for help, Marine Police launches arrived on the scene, but they were unable to join in the search because of darkness. It gets dark in Singapore about seven o’clock most evenings throughout the year.
Counsel stressed that from the time when Jenny disappeared and throughout the Malay divers’ search, Sunny Ang remained ‘singularly calm and detached’. He was brought back to the Marine Police Station in Singapore, where he made a report. Later the same evening, Jenny’s clothes and personal effects, including a gold ring, were returned to her relatives. “Within five hours after Ang had renewed Jenny’s American Insurance policy, Jenny was dead. In Ang’s own words Jenny was ‘presumed to have either drowned or been attacked by a shark’. The next day Ang sat down and typed three letters to the insurance companies informing them of the tragedy and the circumstances of Jenny’s death.”
Royal Navy and RAF divers were brought in by the Marine police to search for Jenny’s body. They carried out several searches, but without success. On 3 September 1963, however, a former RAF diver recovered a green flipper. The heel-strap had been severed. He found it wedged between the rocks off the Sisters Islands. This flipper was subsequently identified by a schoolboy as the one he had lent his classmate, William Ang, brother of Sunny Ang. Counsel suggested the jury would have little difficulty in coming to the conclusion that it was one of the flippers worn by Jenny that fateful afternoon.
Experts decided that the strap had been cut by a sharp instrument, a razor or sharp pair of scissors, in two places to weaken the strap. Because of these cuts the strap had burst. The experts held that the cuts could not have been caused by corals: the strap had been deliberately cut.
Counsel then went on to tell the jury that after Ang had been arrested, the police seized four books on skin-diving. In one of these books, Skin Diving with Snorkel and Aqualung, the author. Jack Atkinson, describes by way of a cautionary tale, a hypothetical story of the dangers a boy and a girl could meet while skin-diving. It ended with this interesting passage: ‘A torn fin strap, a broken mask buckle, or a loose mouth-piece… could have ended in tragedy… a tiny nick in rubber will tear wide open with little strain.” Two-thirds of the strap on Jenny’s flipper had been cut. Why? If, as a result of the cuts, the strap burst and the diver got into difficulties and was drowned, who would benefit from her death? Who, asked Mr Seow, had the strongest motives to see Jenny dead? Mr Seow revealed that Ang had actually tried to get a total insurance coverage of $900,000 on Jenny’s life. In the end he got $450,000.
Once Jenny had disappeared, Sunny Ang and his mother, Madam Yeo Bee Neo, made strenuous efforts through various solicitors to prove Jenny’s death in order to collect this money. They insisted that Jenny was dead, ‘and, members of the jury, who was in a better position than Sunny Ang to assert with such finality that Jenny was, indeed, dead?’
The rest of the first day of the trial was taken up by witnesses involved in the insurance policies. An official of the Great Eastern Life Insurance Company Limited produced a letter from Jenny. It read as follows: Cheok Cheng Kid 33, Lim Liak St.,
Singapore, 3. 28 June 1963
Dear Sir, Regard to your letter LKT/MT your agent have ask me many times to buy insurance. I think good idea to save money. So I buy policy for 20 year endowment for $10,000 (with, not without profit) cost about $40 one month and I also very happy can buy $200,000 insurance for only $20 one month. I feel happy got insurance because I dream my died father tell me if I buy insurance I cannot get accident or harm-like good luck charm. Also I can afford it, all only $60 one month. I earn more $450 one month. If amount too big, less it, I not mind. Next month I want to buy 10 year endowment for $30,000 policy. I want to save money for open dressmaking shop next time. Then I no need work in bar. But I get cold now, cannot go for doctor exam. My cold OK then I go. Madam Yeo Bee Neo is old lady is my friend mother I like better than my own mother. My own mother married another man already. My father is died. But name I anyhow put, I may change to my sister I also like very much. But now name not important, I can always change.
Yours faithfully [sgd] Cheok Cheng Kid
Later, the witness received another letter. He read it to the Court. It went as follows:
Cheok Cheng Kid 33, Lim Liak St., Singapore, 3. 2 July 1963 The Actuary The Great Eastern Life Assurance Co Ltd 16, Cecil Street, Singapore, 1. Dear Sir, Further to my letter dated 28 June, 1963, I wish to add, in order to dispel any fears you may justifiably have, that I am prepared to narrow down the scope of your double indemnity cover to exclude liability from death through third party agency, whether felonious or accidental. Believe me I want accident cover just for the sake of having it for the reason I disclosed in my last letter, and because I may make occasional flights in commercial aircraft in the near future to the Borneo territories. I expect of course a proportionate reduction of the premium charged, or since I’ve paid about $21 DI premiums, how much more cover can I obtain for the same premium at the reduced rate? The above reduced-liability clause, would, of course, not apply to the endowment sum. Thank you. Yours faithfully [sgd] Cheok Cheng Kid