THE KALLANG BODY PARTS MURDERER: LEONG SIEW CHOR (EXECUTED BY HANGING IN SINGAPORE ON 30 NOVEMBER 2007)

           On this date, 30 November 2007, Leong Siew Chor was executed by hanging in Singapore. He was convicted of the 15 June 2005 murder of Chinese National, Liu Hong Mei where her body was cut into seven pieces and thrown into two rivers in Singapore.  
 

INTERNET SOURCE: http://infopedia.nl.sg/articles/SIP_1793_2011-03-17.html

The Kallang Body Parts Murder is one of Singapore’s more prominent criminal cases. The crime took place in June 2005 and involved the murder of Liu Hong Mei, a Chinese national who had been working in Singapore. She was killed by her supervisor and lover, Leong Siew Chor, and subsequently chopped up into seven parts. Her body parts and belongings were then dumped at the Kallang River, Singapore River, rubbish bins along Ubi Road and outside Ang Mo Kio MRT Station. The crime came to light when parts of her body surfaced at Kallang River, giving the crime its name.

Background
Liu was a 22 year-old Chinese national who had come to Singapore to work. Leong was 50 years old and married with three children. Both Liu and Leong worked at Agere Systems Singapore in Serangoon North Avenue 5, where Liu was a production operator and Leong was her supervisor. In mid-2004, the two began to have an affair.

On 13 June, the two checked into a hotel room at Hotel81 in Geylang. While Liu was occupied, Leong stole her bank card. Over the next two days, he withdrew over $2,000 from her savings account. Leong knew her personal identification number, and withdrew the money from ATM machines in Tanjong Katong, Joo Chiat and Haig Road.  Liu later discovered that her card was missing and notified the police. She was advised that she could view the surveillance photos of the offender to see if she could identify the person. Not knowing that Leong was the culprit, she confided in him about the theft of her bank card.

The murder

The murder is believed to have taken place some time between the mornings of 15 and 16 June at Leong’s home at 114 Lorong 3 Geylang. Leong strangled Liu, and then proceeded to chop her body into seven parts: feet, legs above the knee, lower torso, upper torso and head. He used a chopper and a rubber mallet to cut through her bones. He placed the body parts into green plastic bags and cardboard boxes.

Leong then made several trips on various modes of transportation to dump the parts of Liu’s dismembered body at different sites. He cycled to Ubi Road and dumped her clothes, shoes and feet in separate rubbish bins. He took taxis to the Singapore River and the Kallang River, where he dumped her lower legs and head, and lower and upper torso respectively. He then dumped her handbag and its contents at the rubbish bin outside Ang Mo Kio MRT on his way to work. He then reported for work as usual and denied knowledge of Liu’s whereabouts when other colleagues became worried that she was late and did not show up. Her colleagues eventually filed a missing persons report with the police.

On 17 June, the body parts that Leong had dumped into the Kallang River surfaced and drifted to the bank, where they were discovered by a cleaner. The lower and upper torso were the first parts to be discovered. The cleaner first came upon the lower torso, while the police found the upper torso further down on the river bank. The police subsequently managed to find her head and legs in bags from the Singapore River destined for the Tuas incineration plant. However, despite the best efforts of the police, her feet, clothes and belongings were never recovered.

Investigative process

Leong was arrested on 17 June and charged with murder the following day. He was remanded in Changi and Queenstown Prisons while police investigations and a psychiatric evaluation were conducted. During this period, he was also not allowed to meet with either his family or his lawyer, the well-known criminal lawyer Subhas Anandan.

Liu’s funeral was delayed as the police carried out forensic investigations. The process was complicated due to the decomposed nature of the victim's body parts. Her wake was finally held on 12 July 2005, and was attended by more than 100 sympathisers who went to pay their respects.

Legal proceedings

Leong’s trial started in May 2006. As the trial progressed, there was controversy over statements he had given to the police. Leong had initially confessed to killing Liu and had cited a failed suicide pact as the motivation. Based on Leong's statement, his defence lawyer argued that he had made a suicide pact with Liu and that she had therefore consented to her death.

However, Leong later changed his statement in June 2005, stating that he had killed her because he had feared being found out for stealing over $2,000 from her using her bank card. Anandan tried to get the judge to dismiss the changed statement as Leong claimed that it was the police that had convinced him to change it in order to get a lighter sentence. Justice Tay Yong Kwang accepted the changed statement, refusing the defence’s arguments that police procedures and actions had been misleading and inappropriate. Tay argued that suicide was not consistent with Liu’s situation as she was still young and stable in her job.

Leong was found guilty and sentenced to death on 19 May 2006. He appealed, but the appeals court ruled against him in September 2006. A second attempt to have his appeal re-heard was also unsuccessful. He then appealed to President S. R. Nathan for clemency in November 2007 but this was also rejected. Leong was hanged on 30 November 2007.

Timeline
Mid-2004: Affair between Leong and Liu begins.
13 June 2005: Leong steals Liu’s bank card.
14 June 2005: Leong withdraws over $2,000 from Liu’s bank account at several ATM machines.
15-16 June 2005: Leong strangles Liu, chops her body into seven parts and dumps them in the Singapore River and Kallang River.
16 June 2005: Liu’s lower torso is discovered at the Kallang River.
17 June 2005: Leong is arrested.
May 2006: Murder trial begins in High Court.
19 May 2006: Leong is sentenced to death.
September 2006: Leong’s appeal is rejected.
January 2007: A clemency plea sent to President S. R. Nathan.
November 2007: President rejects Leong’s plea.
30 November 2007: Leong is hanged.

 

OTHER LINKS:

http://www.singaporelaw.sg/sglaw/laws-of-singapore/case-law/free-law/high-court-judgments/12904-public-prosecutor-v-leong-siew-chor-2006-3-slr-290-2006-sghc-81

A GREAT SHOCK TO THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH: LEONARD KEITH LAWSON (1927 TO 29 NOVEMBER 2003)

            Ten years ago on this date, 29 November 2003, a convicted rapist and murderer, Leonard Keith Lawson died in his cell at the Grafton Correctional Centre in New South Wales, Australia. I will post information about him from Wikipedia and Murderpedia and some quotes from Paul B. Kidd’s book, before giving my comments and thoughts. His case was very similar to Barry Gordon Hadlow.

Convicted murderer Leonard Lawson arrested and arraigned, Central Police Court, Sydney (Photo by Jack Mulligan) (PHOTO SOURCE: http://murderpedia.org/male.L/l/lawson-leonard-keith.htm)

INTERNET SOURCE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Len_Lawson

Leonard Keith Lawson (1927 - 29 November 2003), better known as Len Lawson or Lennie Lawson, was a bestselling Australian comic book creator, successful commercial artist and photographer, and a convicted rapist and murderer.

Lawson first came to prominence as the creator of The Lone Avenger, an Australian comic book hero, whose first appearance was in the second issue of Action Comics in 1946, running for thirteen years, eventually taking over the entire comic and selling up to 70,000 copies. Lawson also created another masked Western vigilante hero The Hooded Rider, as well as Diana, Queen of the Apes and Peter Fury.

In 1954, however, Lawson kidnapped, assaulted and raped five models. He was sentenced to death but had his sentence commuted to 14 years in prison. After his release in 1961, he raped and killed another model on 7 November 1962 and on the next day, took several hostages at the Sydney Church of England Girls' Grammar School, killing a 15-year old girl in the ensuing siege. Sentenced to life imprisonment, Lawson died in prison in November 2003.

INTERNET SOURCE: http://murderpedia.org/male.L/l/lawson-leonard-keith.htm

Classification: Murderer

Characteristics: Convicted rapist - Siege at a private girls’ school

Number of victims: 2

Date of murders: November 7-8, 1961

Date of arrest: November 8, 1961

Date of birth: August 16, 1927

Victims profile: Jane Bower, 16 / Wendy Sue Luscombe, 15

Method of murder: Stabbing with knife / Shooting

Location: Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

Status: Sentenced to death on 25 June 1954. Commuted to 14 years imprisonment. Paroled in May 1961. Sentenced to life in prison, 1962. Died in prison on November 29, 2003

An artist, Lawson was convicted of the rape of two teenage girls in 1952. Originally sentenced to death it was later commuted to life imprisonment.

He was released on parole in 1961, whereupon he stabbed a 16 year-old girl and the next day strangled a 15 year-old girl in Sydney.

Again sentenced to life imprisonment for the murders, he is now eligible to apply to the Supreme Court for a fixed sentence. While in prison he tried to kill another female in 1972.

Leonard Keith Lawson

Leonard Keith Lawson, a convicted rapist and murderer, died on Nov. 29, 2003, in his cell at the Grafton Correctional Centre in New South Wales. Authorities say he probably suffered a heart attack. He was 76.

Lawson worked as a successful commercial artist and photographer before he became a violent criminal. In 1954, he kidnapped five models, took them into the Terrey Hills bush in north Sydney and raped two of them at gunpoint; he also sexually assaulted the others. Originally sentenced to be executed, Lawson received a 14-year prison sentence after the death penalty was commuted. When he was released, Lawson used his artistic background to lure new victims.

On Nov. 7, 1961, while painting a portrait of 16-year-old Jane Bower, Lawson tied her up, sexually assaulted her then stabbed her to death. The next day, he carried a gun into the Sydney Church of England Girls' Grammar School and took several students hostage. Fifteen-year-old Wendy Sue Luscombe, who was sitting in the chapel pews, was shot and killed during the siege. This time, Lawson received a life sentence.

Imprisonment didn't curb Lawson's violent tendencies. Ten years into his second incarceration, a group of dancers gave a concert for the inmates at his prison. At the end of the performance, Lawson jumped on stage and threatened to kill one of the dancers, Sharon Hamilton, with a knife. Although Hamilton was released unharmed, she committed suicide six years after the attack.

One of the oldest prisoners in Australia, Lawson spent 48 years in prison, and has been behind bars continuously since 1962. Several of his paintings currently hang at the prison where he died.

Leonard Keith Lawson (b. 16 August 1927), creator of The Lone Avenger and The Hooded Rider comic books, drove five female models on a photo shoot to bushland in the Terrey Hills area on 7 May 1954. After binding and gagging them at gunpoint, he raped three of them, and indecently assaulted the other two women.

He was apprehended by police and was initially sentenced to death on 25 June 1954, but this was later commuted to 14 years imprisonment. A model prisoner, Lawson was paroled in May 1961 after just serving seven years.

On 6 November 1961, he raped and murdered a teenage girl, Jane Bower, and was apprehended by police the following day during a siege at a private girls’ school where, while struggling with a teacher, Lawson’s gun went off, killing a student, Wendy Luscombe. Lawson was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1962 and died at the Grafton Correctional Centre on 29 November 2003.

Killer Lawson dies after 50 years in jail

By Candace Sutton - The Sun-Herald

November 30, 2003

One of NSW's most notorious criminals, Leonard Keith Lawson, 76, died in Grafton jail yesterday after being imprisoned for the better part of 50 years.

Lennie Lawson, as he was known, became a successful commercial artist and photographer before committing multiple rape and murder.

In his teens, he created a highly popular comic book character, The Lone Avenger, a masked lawman who saved women from kidnappers and brought murderers to task.

In 1954, at the age of 26, he took five June Dally-Watkins photographic models into the Terrey Hills bush in north Sydney and, at gunpoint, raped two and sexually assaulted the others.

He was condemned to death, but his sentence was commuted to 14 years' jail and he was released after serving only half the term.

On November 7, 1962, while painting a portrait of 16-year-old Manly girl, Jane Bower, in his flat at Collaroy, Lawson bound her arms, sexually assaulted her and stabbed her to death. The next day, he burst into the chapel of the Sydney Church of England Girls' Grammar School at Moss Vale, taking schoolgirls hostage.

(A few weeks earlier he had dined with the SCEGGS pupils and staff as an honoured "author", after convincing the headmistress he was researching a novel set in a girls' school.)

In the siege, a struggle ensued and his gun discharged, killing 15-year-old Wendy Sue Luscombe, who was sitting in the pews.

Lawson was sentenced to life imprisonment.

On December 15, 1972, a group of dancers arrived at Parramatta jail to give a concert for the inmates.

Lawson, on privileges, was in the audience. At the end of the performance, he whipped out a knife and jumped to the stage, holding the blade to the throat of dancer Sharon Hamilton in what prison warders believe was an escape attempt.

Hamilton later sought extensive psychiatric treatment and became a patient at the now notorious Chelmsford Hospital. Six years after the attack, Hamilton committed suicide.

Residing in Grafton jail, Lawson applied for day leave and, in 1994, for a determinant sentence.

He told a reporter that he believed he deserved some freedom and he wasn't a threat, although "the rhythms of the city and its women" got to him.

His application was rejected.

Lawson continued his painting throughout his life in jail, producing many canvases which hang in Grafton.

COMMENTS:

            In Paul B. Kidd’s book, ‘Never to be released’, Lenny Keith Lawson won his parole for the two rapes he committed not only because of just escaping the death sentence, but also because he was a model prisoner, good artist and a devout Roman Catholic. Just like Barry Hadlow, Lenny played Christian to get out of prison.

           

            Lenny’s case is a great embarrassment to Sister Helen Prejean who always insists that murderers should be allowed to keep their lives. I suggest anybody showing to her and see how she will freak out for sure! Three innocent lives were lost and Sister Helen Prejean will keep silent for sure!

            Since Lenny died in prison already, Thank God that no one can free him or write any letters to him. I encourage people to destroy his artworks, such a disgrace to buy artwork from a rapist murderer. This is a perfect example of how flawed restorative Justice is.

ISRAEL NEEDS THE DEATH PENALTY FOR TERRORISTS [ARTICLE ON THE DEATH PENALTY OF THE WEEK ~ SUNDAY NOVEMBER 24, 2013 TO SATURDAY NOVEMBER 30, 2013]

NOTICE: The following article is written by the author itself and not by me, I am not trying to violate their copyright. I will give some information on them.

PAGE TITLE: http://www.cbsnews.com/

ARTICLE TITLE: How Bibi blew it with Hamas

DATE: Friday October 28, 2011

AUTHOR: Deroy Murdock

AUTHOR INFORMATION: Deroy Murdock is an American libertarian syndicated columnist for the Scripps Howard News Service and a contributing editor with National Review Online.

URL: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/how-bibi-blew-it-with-hamas/

Terrorist Cadet School (PHOTO SOURCE: http://www.tonyinman.net/hot-off-the-press/what-will-your-legacy-be/attachment/afghanistan-suicide-bombers-cartoon)

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, previously counted among the toughest leaders in the civilized world, has become softer than the secretary general of the United Nations. Netanyahu recently ransomed a kidnapped Israeli soldier whom Hamas had held hostage since 2006. The price for Sgt. Gilad Shalit's freedom? Israel will free 1,027 Palestinian prisoners. Many are hardened terrorists with Israeli and even American blood on their hands. This colossal breach of justice for these victims injects this toxic population back into society. Some of them almost certainly will express their gratitude with machine guns and dynamite.

The first wave of 477 prisoners swapped for Shalit includes at least three terrorists who have slaughtered Americans.

• Ahlam Tamimi conspired to attack a Sbarro restaurant on Aug. 9, 2001. This Jerusalem suicide bombing killed 15 -- including Passaic, N.J.'s Shoshana Greenbaum, 31 -- and wounded 130 more.

Now carefree in Jordan, despite 16 life sentences, Tamimi has no regrets.

"It was a calculated act, performed with conviction and faith in Allah," she told a Hamas website. "Jihad warriors are always ready to die as martyrs, to be arrested -- or to succeed. I managed to overcome the barrier of prison and was released. Why should I repent?"

• Abd al-Hadi Rafa Ghanim of Islamic Jihad grabbed the wheel of a Jerusalem-bound bus and steered into a ravine in 1989, killing eleven (including Philadelphia's Rita Susan Levin, 39) and injuring 27. Ghanim was serving 16 life sentences.
• Ibrahim Muhammad Yunus Dar Musa received 17 years for, among other things, helping to murder Detroit native Dr. David Applebaum, 51, and his daughter, Nava, 20, on her wedding eve. Five others were killed and at least 50 wounded in a Sept. 9, 2003, suicide bombing at Jerusalem's Café Hillel.
• Abd al-Aziz Yussuf Mustafa Salehi famously waved his bloody hands from the window of a Ramallah police station, in which he and other members of a mob fatally flogged and killed Israeli reservists Vadim Norzhich and Yosef Avrahami. These October 2000 murders earned Salehi a life sentence.
• Maedh Waal Taleb Abu Sharakh, Majdi Muhammad Ahmed Amr, and Fadi Muhammad Ibrahim al-Jaaba of Hamas planned a March 5, 2003, suicide bombing of Haifa's bus 37, killing 17 and wounding 53. These murderers received 19, 19, and 18 life sentences respectively.
• Nasir Sami Abd al-Razzaq Ali al Nasser-Yataima planned a Passover 2002 suicide bombing that killed 30 and wounded 140 at Netanya's Park Hotel, earning him 29 life terms, plus 20 years.

In addition to the 469 other prisoners released on October 18, Israel soon will free another 550 dangerous characters -- all to rescue one Israeli soldier.

With all due respect and sympathy for Sergeant Shalit, this was a stupid, disproportionate, and likely deadly decision.

As Nadav Shragai wrote in Jerusalem Viewpoints, an estimated 50 percent of terrorists in previous Israeli prisoner swaps and "goodwill gestures" subsequently executed, plotted, or supported terror assaults. In fact, Israel had previously freed participants in the aforementioned Passover massacre and Café Hillel bombing. Israeli officials had twice discharged Ramez Sali Abu Salmim. He eventually blew himself up in Café Hillel.

Israel, Palestinians swap prisoners

Israel: Politics behind the prisoner swap

In October 2010, the U.S.-Israeli Almagor Terror Victims Association counted at least 30 attacks involving Islamic extremists liberated by Israel's government. Almagor reports that 177 people have been murdered, and many others injured, in attacks that Israel could have prevented simply by keeping these savages caged.

While Israel now has complicated its own anti-terrorist vigilance, America cannot rest either. Some of these freed killers will remain in Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza, from which they can attack Israelis. That would be bad enough.

Some of the more adventurous terrorists, however, might use their new and undeserved freedom to target Americans. Why not teach Israel's chief benefactor and staunchest ally a lesson by, say, blasting a U.S. bank branch elsewhere in the Middle East -- or beyond? No American embassy, hotel, military base, or bar full of laughing, singing U.S. tourists is any safer for Netanyahu's folly -- from London to Lima.

And why not bomb Americans in Long Island or Los Angeles? A quick flight from, say, Cairo through Frankfurt to Mexico City, and then over the well-trampled route across America's wide-open southern frontier (or via the even more vulnerable northern border), and jihad in America can become a reality for any of these hundreds of dedicated terrorists that Israel has escorted right onto the street.

Also, Netanyahu idiotically has fixed the terrorist-soldier exchange rate at approximately 1,000 to one. With 3,997 Palestinians still in custody as of August 31, not counting the 1,027 swap beneficiaries, Hamas needs to kidnap just four Israeli soldiers in order to demand freedom for all of its detained comrades. My friend Jacob Laksin reports in FrontPageMag.com that Palestinians in Gaza already have begun to chant: "The people want a new Gilad!"

Ironically, President Obama, who is sometimes considered soft on terrorism, has deployed drones and Navy SEALS overseas to blow major terrorists into splinters, due process be damned. (Hooray for that!) In contrast, Netanyahu -- approximately the Ronald Reagan of Israel -- liberates thousands of Islamic-extremist killers, like a one-man Israeli ACLU.

Netanyahu totally ignores these wise words:

"Do not release jailed terrorists. . . . Prisoner releases only embolden terrorists by giving them the feeling that even if they are caught, their punishment will be brief. Worse, by leading terrorists to think such [prisoner-exchange] demands are likely to be met, they encourage precisely the kind of terrorist blackmail they are supposed to defuse."

This sound advice was offered by none other than . . . Benjamin Netanyahu on page 144 of his 1995 book Fighting Terrorism: How Democracies Can Defeat Domestic and International Terrorism. 

Israel urgently needs something far closer to the Obama model. Rather than "punish" terrorist killers with meaningless multiple life sentences, Israel should give them the death penalty -- good and hard. Terrorists can be neither demanded, nor exchanged, nor killed again, while dead. Israel should execute this filth, cremate them, and then dump their ashes into the Mediterranean. They will no longer bother anyone, save for a few unfortunate fish that will deserve apologies for having to swim amid such filth.

Bio: Deroy Murdock is a fellow with the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace at Stanford University. Counterterrorism researchers Mitchell Baxter and Laurence Herman supplied information for this article. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.