Alex Josey - Cold blooded murders

Justice Buttrose reminded the jury again about circumstantial evidence: one of its points was its cumulative effect. “The question for you is: where does the totality of them, the total effect of these links, lead you to? Adding them together, considering them, not merely each one in itself, but altogether, does it, or does it not, lead you to the irresistible inference and conclusion that the accused committed this crime? Or is there some other reasonably possible explanation of those facts? The prosecution case is that the effect of all this evidence drives you inevitably and inexorably to the one conclusion, and one conclusion only: that it was Sunny Ang, the accused, who intentionally caused the death of this young girl.”

Justice Buttrose went on to examine the defence. He said that Ang’s evidence on oath from the witness-box was, the gist of it, that this was an accident. “He cannot tell us what sort of an accident it was because, of course, he did not see it. He said she might have got tired of waiting for him and, I use his own words, ‘she may have wandered off on her own on the sea-bed and got swept away by the tide or current’.”

Ang completely excluded the possibility of Jenny swimming underwater to one or other of the Sisters Islands, ‘because he said that he and Yusuf examined them from the sampan for any sign of life or for footprints. There was no vestige of either. He did not however discard or discount the possibility of sharks. He, at any rate, is quite certain that she is dead and was of that same opinion right from the start’. The judge reminded the jury of the three letters to the insurance companies.

Ang denied that he cut the strap of the flipper which he admitted looked like the one that Jennv wore on the fateful day. The judge told the jury he could not see how on the evidence they could escape the conclusion that it was. Ang denied in any way tampering with her equipment so that she would drown.

Ang’s evidence, the judge said, was that he met Jenny when she was a bar girl at the Odeon Bar. She showed an interest in his poultry farm, and expressed a desire to own the farm herself. Eventually it was agreed he would sell it to her for $10,000 payable over a period of time. At the date of her disappearance, according to Ang, she had paid him $2,000 on account. “How this bar waitress, earning $90 a month and some $10 a day in tips when she worked, was going to find the money to pay $2,000, let alone the remaining $8,000, is a matter which I find difficult to understand or appreciate, particularly when you bear in mind her sister Eileen’s evidence that Jenny was always short of money.” Furthermore, on the accused’s own admission, Jenny knew nothing about, and had had no experience whatever, in chicken farming. “Again, what do you think the accused mother’s views on this transaction would have been? You must ask yourself whether or not you can accept this evidence. Ang was not going to help this girl. He was going to use the money to go to the United Kingdom to further his studies. Ang said that it was Jenny who paid the insurance premiums. He had said that Jenny wanted to make him the beneficiary and he had suggested his mother’s name instead. All his other property was in his mother’s name. This was because he was a bankrupt.”

Justice Buttrose referred to Ang’s car trip to the Federation with Jenny and remarked, “I am bound to say I find that a most remarkable tale, but,” he told the jury, “it is your views, not mine, that count.”

The judge continued, “Quite glibly, the accused told us of some incidents on the way up, of a few narrow shaves. He said he overtook cars quite recklessly and skidded once, but managed to recover. Why should he want to overtake cars quite recklessly, I cannot conceive. Or, gentlemen of the jury, was it to prepare, so to speak, for the inevitable accident that subsequently happened on the way back?” They originally planned, so Ang said, to go to the Cameron Highlands for a holiday. But what did they do? The next morning Ang took out a travel accident insurance policy for himself for $30,000, and a $100,000 policy for Jenny for 14 days. Ang had said in the witness-box that Jenny was quite fearful of driving back with him. She told him, he said, they would have an accident on the way back and she insisted on him taking out an insurance policy to cover medical and other expenses should they get involved in a serious accident. “Does that ring true?” asked the judge. “I find it myself wholly extraordinary. What do you, the jury, think? Did the accused take Jenny to Kuala Lumpur for their holiday to the Cameron Highlands, or was it merely to obtain further insurance on her because Singapore was getting a bit hot for him? That the news might be getting round the Singapore insurance companies that here was a young man and a young girl, large policies were being effected-accident policies in the girl’s name-and that their chance of getting further insurance in Singapore was getting more and more remote. Was this, therefore, purely a venture to get insurance in Kuala Lumpur?”

On the way back, sure enough, they had the accident which if not regarded as a ‘moral certainty’ was anticipated by them both. The judge directed the attention of the jury to the contrast of the police evidence concerning the accident and the evidence given by Sunny Ang. He asked them to keep in mind the fact that the car, badly damaged, would not be ready before the middle of September. Yet, the judge went on, Ang gave as the reason why he extended Jenny’s insurance on the morning of 27 August for five days-to use his own words-‘We might have to go to Seremban that night by night train and drive the car back if it was ready and, if not, to see that the workmen are getting on with the job of repairing the damaged car’. The judge said he found this explanation extraordinary. “Was that the real reason for extending this policy for a further five days? What had the accused in mind? Had he decided that very afternoon, while scuba-diving in this dangerous channel, that a golden opportunity presented itself to him for getting rid of her, while cunningly contriving to give it the appearance of an unfortunate but innocent accident? That is the question you must ask yourselves.”

The judge carefully examined Ang’s version of what happened on the spot, ‘in mid-channel to which he had directed the boatman’. Their intention according to the accused was to go down and collect coral together, a joint expedition, ‘an intention that was never carried put’.

Jenny went down first and surfaced after 10 minutes, Then, Ang said, it had been his intention that they would both go down together to collect coral. He turned on Jenny’s air valve to her tank and down she went. “And it is important, gentlemen of the jury, to note that the accused said that at that time his tank was then on his back. He said he let Jenny go down first on the principle of ‘ladies first’, a matter of courtesy.” Here the judge paused. He said he wanted to remind the jury of the boatman’s evidence which was that when Jenny went down the second time Sunny Ang had none of his equipment on at all. All he had on were his bathing trunks. “Now, someone is, therefore, lying. Is it the accused or is it the boatman? Why should the boatman be lying? It is of no interest to him, one way or the other.”

The judge went on to examine Ang’s version of the washers and the tanks, recalling his attempts to fix the leak and the successful efforts of the experts. “At this stage,” remarked the judge, “Ang had apparently been successful in putting out of action all the available scuba-diving equipment. They could no longer be used and Ang said he couldn’t use them.” “It was then,” recalled Justice Buttrose, “that I asked Sunny Ang what he thought Jenny would be doing all this time, and he gave the astonishing reply, ‘Oh, Jenny was a patient sort of girl’; she would be waiting for him, hanging on to the bottom of the guide line rope on the sea-bed for some 10 or 15 minutes. He considered that quite a reasonable time. What do you think, members of the jury? Is it not only possible, but probable, that having waited for a short while her curiosity got the better of her and she got a little more bold by then? She might have decided to let go of that guide line for a little while and gone to have a look to see what was about. And was it not then that one of the undertows got her and swept her away? With her flipper heel-strap broken, then as a purely unskilled novice scuba diver, she in fact, before seeing where she was, was swept hundreds of yards away? The air in her tank then ran out and she died. Is that a possible explanation for there being no air bubbles seen by anyone at any time?”