Alex Josey - Cold blooded murders

Dealing with the question of the beneficiary under the insurance policy, defence counsel said that accused had said in his police statement that his mother, Madam Yeo Bee Neo, had been named beneficiary because he himself was a bankrupt.

With regard to the will, counsel said that it was difficult to conceive the circumstances in which an unwilling or uncooperative person would make one. He submitted that in this particular instance there was very good reason for a girl like Jenny to make a will. She was married and estranged from her husband, and in the event of her death the only person who could enforce any claims on what Jenny might have had would have been the estranged husband. “It is in my submission quite clear that Jenny knew exactly what the will was, knew the consequence of making it and knew its effect,” said Mr Coomaraswamy. The evidence was clear that she was a full and willing party to the making of this will.

Defence counsel also touched on the theory that the accused had designed an accident on the road to kill Jenny so that he could get the insurance money, but having failed in that had set up another device. “It is my submission that accused’s story of the accident is the correct one, that he was driving fast round this notorious bend,” said Mr Coomaraswamy. Another improbability of the prosecution theory on this was that the accused would design a serious motor accident with himself as the driver. “My submission is that the prosecution theory is as fanciful as the rest of their case.”

In his argument on the evidence regarding one of the flippers which was found, counsel said there were three possibilities: · the flipper was not cut when Jenny went down for her first dive; · the flipper was cut between the first and second dives; and · the flipper was not cut at all.

He asked the jury to dismiss the second possibility and to consider whether or not the flipper was cut before the first dive. If, as the prosecution alleged, it was the accused’s object to kill Jenny on her first dive, the accused could have tampered with either her aqualung, weight belt or flipper.

If the flipper had been cut the first time, Jenny would have discovered it, and the flipper would not have withstood the tensions applied to it while it was being put on. But she went into the water and came up again with no apparent sign of difficulty.

Counsel submitted that if the prosecution theory was true, the only possible assumption about the accused was that he was a calculating and cold-blooded killer. “Would accused have taken the risk of Jenny detecting the cut flippers?” he asked. “In the light of the evidence it is my submission that the evidence of this flipper is not enough and it is highly dangerous to act on it.”

Defence counsel said that the speculation in the case finally crystallized on the answers to two questions. The first was: is Jenny dead? “On this, you will have to disregard anything you have heard outside this court, and the views of all other persons,” he told the jury, “and you will have to come to a conclusion upon the hard facts of the evidence adduced before you.”

“It is not my task, nor that of my client, to explain the non-production of the body but the task of the prosecution to satisfy you that Jenny is, in fact, dead, although her body has not been found.”

He referred to the evidence of a witness, Yeo Tong Hock, who in November 1964 was willing to swear an affidavit that the person whom he knew to be Jenny was seen by him in late August 1963, in Penang, and subsequently in Alor Star. This was the only evidence available of whether Jenny was alive or not.

Mr Coomaraswamy said it was possible that Jenny was carried by currents, but did not find her air-tank unserviceable. The theory was not too far-fetched. It was strange that her body had not been found if, in fact, she was dead.

“In a case like this, you cannot act on evidence that maybe she is dead,” he submitted. “You cannot even act on evidence that allows you to say, ‘You may be pretty sure she is dead.’ You have to go beyond that and act only if you can be morally certain beyond reasonable doubt that she is dead.”

He submitted that the jury could not reach that conclusion on the evidence given. He reminded them that the accused was not being charged with fraud or telling lies, which carried penalties of imprisonment on conviction. Accused was charged with the most serious offence. The more serious and grave the punishment, the more careful they must be in making inferences.

If the jury came to the conclusion that Jenny was dead, they must reach a further conclusion. How did she come by her death? “Unless you come to the conclusion where you feel that the accused is responsible for her death, you cannot find him guilty of murder,” said counsel.

Even assuming for a moment that accused did cut Jenny’s flipper, could the jury say with moral certainty and beyond a reasonable doubt, after eliminating all other things that could have happened, that the accused was responsible for her death? “Can you, acting so that you are morally certain beyond a reasonable doubt, come to the conclusion that the accused did kill Jenny in the manner put forward by the prosecution?”

Mr Coomaraswamy concluded, “It is my submission that there are many explanations to the disappearance that are possible, and even on the assumption that she is dead, there are many ways in which she could have come to her death.”

Prosecution’s Closing Speech

In his closing speech, Mr Seow argued that it had been clearly established that, until Jenny met Ang, she did not know how to swim or scuba-dive. Ang had apparently taught her to do both in the short space of three months. “Do you think she could have possibly reached that degree of proficiency in scuba-diving to make it safe for her to dive in the channel between the Sisters Islands? Jenny was at best still a novice in scuba-diving, and Sunny Ang her instructor knew this.”

Yusuf was Ang’s regular boatman. He remembered having taken Jenny and Ang together only once before: that was to Pulau Tekukor, about two months before 27 August 1963, and on this occasion Jenny did not scuba-dive. The boatman did however have an opportunity of observing Jenny’s prowess at swimming. He described this as ‘unskilled’. The only occasion Yusuf had taken Jenny and Ang scuba-diving was on 27 August, which was Jenny’s first scuba-venture out at sea. Eileen Toh, who was at a picnic at Tanah Merah Besar, noticed that Jenny could barely swim as late as August.

Counsel made much of what he called ‘the cursory search’ for Jenny when she failed to respond to Ang’s jerking on the rope. Ang was in his swimming trunks: he was a very good swimmer and yet he did not go into the water in search of Jenny. In fact he never got his feet wet at all that day. Why did he not go in himself in search of Jenny? “You are left with the inescapable feeling that the prisoner was reluctant, most reluctant to look for her. And indeed we have his own word for it. Astonishing as it may sound, he saw no point in diving to look for her because he could not see her air bubbles anywhere near the boat, and because visibility in that depth could be only a few feet.” Ang further thought that sharks might have attacked her and his instinct for self-preservation prevented him from diving down.

Counsel said that it took Ang some 15 minutes or more to realize that he had an emergency situation on his hands. “And, upon that realization, was he galvanized into immediate action to save the girl he says he loved, and whom he says he had intended to marry? With all the scuba-diving equipment on board, all he did was vaguely to recall that there was a telephone on St John’s Island, some distance away, and, upon confirming this with the boatman, went there to summon the police for help. On the way, Ang apparently found time to change back into his street clothes.”