Tan Chor Jin

Tan Chor Jin, nicknamed "One Eyed Dragon" by the Singapore media, sentenced to death in May 2007 for the shooting and murder of a nightclub owner. Tan represented himself in court without a lawyer initially, but later tasked veteran criminal lawyer Subhas Anandan with his defence. In the end, he asked the judge to give him the death sentence and was hanged in January 2009. On 15 February 2006, at Block 223 Serangoon Avenue 3, he used a firearm which is Beretta pistol by discharging 6 rounds to cause death to the person Lim Hock Soon, 40. He had suffered five gunshot wounds to the body. He was pronounced dead by a paramedic who was called to the scene subsequent to the shooting incident which took place at 7am on that morning.

The Serangoon flat is a HDB estate. The deceased lived with his wife, the daughter and female domestic worker in the flat. The flat has three bedrooms. On one side was the master bedroom occupied by the deceased and his wife. On the other side is the daughter's study room, the bedroom in between was used by the deceased as the study room. The study room contained a piano, a computer on a table, safe, television, cabinets and three chairs (a black metal one with a cushion seat, a wooden one and a black swivel chair). The shooting incident took place in the room and the deceased was lying dead on the floor.

In the morning of 15 February 2006, one James Tan informed Ah Chwee that the accused was looking for him. Ah Chwee then went to James Tan’s flat and drove James Tan’s car, a Nissan Cefiro with the registration number SFY 4444 Z (“the Nissan Cefiro”), to the accused’s flat at Block 247 Hougang Avenue 3 at about 3am. There, the accused asked Ah Chwee to drive him to Block 223 in Serangoon Avenue 4 (“the deceased’s block”). The accused sat in the front passenger seat. He was carrying a black clutch bag.

They arrived at the carpark at 3.15am. There, the accused pointed out two cars to Ah Chwee, both bearing registration number plates “9699”. The accused alighted from the car and walked towards the deceased's block. Ah Chwee remained in the car. Some ten minutes later, the accused returned to the car and asked Ah Chwee to drive him to James Tan’s ground floor flat at Block 515 Hougang Avenue 10. Along the way, the accused asked Ah Chwee in Hokkien, “Where can a Rolex watch be robbed?”. When Ah Chwee asked him why, the accused said luck was not with him and he was facing financial problems.

When they arrived at James Tan's flat at 4am, the accused placed his black clutch bag beneath the front passenger seat before alighting from the car. They then spent the next two hours or so watching some football game in the flat.

At the 6am, Mr Tan told Ah Chwee to drive him to the deceased block again. When they arrived there at the carpark for the second time, the accused took the black clutch bag and had alighted. The accused was wearing a black t-shirt and black pants and had a black cap on. He told Ah Chwee to wait for him in the car near a school opposite the deceased's block. Ah Chwee complied.

About half an hour later, the accused returned to the car, appearing nervous and more excited than usual. He was carrying a white plastic bag which appeared to be bulky and his black clutch bag. He instructed Ah Chwee to drive to “the river”. When Ah Chwee asked for clarification, he told him to take the route to James Tan’s flat.

While they were travelling on the Upper Serangoon Road, the accused pointed to the canal on the other side of the road and made a u-turn. Ah Chwee did so and then stopped the car. The accused went out of the car with his black clutch bag but not the white plastic bag and walked down a path leading to the canal. He returned some five minutes later and asked Ah Chwee to drive to James Tan’s flat again.

The deceased and his wife, Joey, returned home at 3am on 15 February 2006. Joey went to sleep in the master bedroom while the deceased watched television in the living room. The deceased 13 year old daughter at 6.55am, was sitting at the doorsteps of the flat, trying to put on shoes to go to school. Suddenly, the accused rushed in and pushed her from the front. He was there to rob. He had a knife in the right hand and a gun in the left. He had the black clutch bag in the armpit.

The deceased was sleeping in the living room while Joey was sleeping in the master bedroom. Risa, the female Indonesian domestic help, was walking toward S from the flat’s kitchen. The accused used his right hand to wake the deceased up. When the deceased asked the accused what he wanted, the accused replied (in Hokkien), “I have a gun and do you want me to shoot?” The deceased asked him not to do so. The accused then told the deceased, S and Risa to go to the study room. He then instructed Risa to go and wake Joey up. The accused then herded all of them to the master bedroom. There, the accused told Joey in Hokkien to wake up. When she awoke, he told her to take out all the valuables and to put them into a blue denim bag. He then told her to put the blue denim bag into a bigger white plastic bag. At one point, the accused pointed the gun at the deceased and threatened him in Mandarin, “Talk again, talk again”. The accused picked up the filled white plastic bag and then asked for ropes. When told that they had none, the accused asked the deceased to get some towels from the kitchen.

When the deceased to the master bedroom with some towels, the accused asked him to tie the three ladies up. The deceased proceeded to tie Risa’s hands at the front and also her legs. He then tied S’s and Joey’s hands at the front. The accused and the deceased then went to the study room. The three ladies heard arguments between the two men. The accused then returned to the master bedroom and told them to go to the study room.

In the study room, the accused told the deceased in Mandarin to open the safe and then to put in. The deceased complied. The deceased later handed Joey a television cable and placed his hands in front of his body. Joey could still move her tied hands somewhat and managed to tie the deceased’s hands at the front. As she had difficulty tightening the knot, she also used her teeth to pull the ends together. The accused next told them to go to separate rooms. Joey pleaded with him to allow her to be with S. He agreed. Joey and S then went back to the master bedroom while Risa went into S’s bedroom. The accused also went into the master bedroom and told mother and daughter to sit down on the floor. After they had complied, he went out of the room. The doors of all three bedrooms were open.

A little later, Joey and the daughter heard the loud bang from the gun and shouted "Ah!" Joey shouted "Don't Don't" in Mandarin but they heard five more bangs. The accused then returned to the master bedroom and told Joey in Mandarin that it was her husband who had gone too far. Joey pushed her outwards while held her close. The accused then walked towards the door of the bedroom and said in Mandarin that he would spare them but warned them not to recognise him or he would kill the whole family. After that, he left the Serangoon flat with the white plastic bag, slamming the metal grille gates in the process. He was shot on the right cheek, right temple, back, left arm and left thigh, knocking him to the floor.

Joey telephoned the deceased sister who lived a few units away in the block and then ran out of the master bedroom. She called Risa and emerged. Joey then went into the study room where she saw the deceased lying on the floor in a pull of blood. She cannot rouse him. When the mother and the sister arrived, Joey asked the sister to call the police. The electrical circuit in the house tripped after that, and police and ambulance came.

Under cross-examination, Joey was asked by the accused how he had pointed the gun at her. She demonstrated with her left arm bent at a practically right angle, with the imaginary gun pointed forwards. The accused also asked S how he had pointed the gun at the deceased when he was trying to wake him up. S replied that the gun was pointed downwards at her father who was sleeping on a mattress on the floor in the living room.

Risa said that although the deceased tied her hands and legs, the knots were not very tight and she could still move her limbs somewhat. Hence, she was able to walk slowly to the study room when told to do so. After Joey and S were directed back into the master bedroom, the accused returned to the study room and pointed the gun at Risa’s forehead. Risa pleaded with him in English, “Uncle, please don’t kill me. I here working”. The accused said he knew that. The deceased also pleaded with the accused not to harm Risa. The accused then pointed the gun at the deceased’s forehead. The deceased knelt down and begged for his life. At that stage, the accused told Risa to go to S’s room and to keep quiet inside. She did so and sat on the raised platform in that room with the room door ajar.

The next day, Ah Chwee led some police officers to the canal where he had driven the accused into the Nissan Cefiro. It was low tide then and it is muddy. The weapon was thrown into the canal and it is a Beretta 0.22 Calibre pistol. It was found to have one round on the chamber and one round on gun magazine. The pistol was cleaned as it had heavy rust deposits, due to the exposure to seawater.

David Loo, a weapon specialist in the Force Armament Branch, testified that visual inspection and functionality checks were conducted to assess the condition of the weapon. He found the trigger pull for single/double action mode was within the requirement of between 4lbs to 12lbs respectively. Single action mode meant that the hammer had already been cocked and it would be easier to pull the trigger. The weapon had no automatic or semi-automatic function selection which would have allowed it to discharge more than one round at a time. There were no stoppages or malfunction observed during the test firing conducted using the police’s 0.22LR ammunition. The magazine, which was also rusty and had to be thoroughly cleaned, was found to be serviceable and in good working condition. The weapon could hold a total of eight rounds – one loaded in the chamber with seven in the magazine. It was unlikely to fire if it was accidentally dropped because of a built-in safety feature (which was found not to have been tampered with). When asked by the accused whether a fully loaded Beretta could fire if one did not squeeze the trigger, David Loo replied that it could not. This was so even if the hammer was cocked.

On February 26, after the dramatic shooting, Mr Lim's wake is held at the void deck where he was killed. It drew hundreds of curious onlookers - some of whom wanted to catch the popular scenes of the KTV lounge in Havelock Road. During the final rites, Mr Lim's widow had broke down, among with several hostesses.

At the cremation, Mdm Kok was too distraught in the cremation hall at Mandai.

On 25 February 2006, the Singapore Police was informed that Tan Chor Jin was arrested in Kuala Lumpur at the 5-star Grand Plaza Parkroyal hotel. Siau Fang Fang, 25 was arrested with him. An autopsy performed on the deceased by Dr Teo Eng Swee, a consultant forensic psychologist, showed that the cause of his death is due to the multiple gunshot wounds. There were five such wounds found, one each at the left thigh, left arm, the back, the right cheek and the right temple. There were no exit wounds found. Five bullets were recovered from the deceased’s body. Dr Teo was unable to tell the sequence of the gunshots. However, he opined that the shot to the right temple would have been instantaneously fatal or death would have resulted within seconds. It was therefore likely to have been the final shot as there was evidence of a struggle (such as the toppled chair and the splatters of blood on the floor) and the deceased would not have been able to move about anymore if that had been the first shot. The fact that there was no exit wound for this shot was consistent with the deceased’s head being pressed against a hard surface like a wall or a floor. The position of the body as he found it at the scene was also consistent with this analysis (the left side of the deceased’s face was on the floor). The shot to the back was potentially fatal. The resulting injury to the lung would cause blood coughed out by the deceased to present a bubbly appearance. The other three shots were potentially survivable but, in the absence of medical attention, such wounds would cause the deceased to bleed to death. The wound to the right cheek was surrounded by an area of searing 1.4cm in diameter and an area of powder tattooing of 3cm in diameter. The wound to the right temple had an area of powder tattooing of around 6cm in diameter.

Asked by the accused about the other injuries noted on the deceased’s body, Dr Teo said that the bruising around the left eye was probably the result of blunt force trauma, such as a punch. The injuries on both knees would indicate that the deceased fell to his knees at some point. Dr Teo also said that it was possible that the shot to the right cheek was suffered when the deceased was lying in a prone position as shown in photograph P15. Based on the appearance of powder tattooing caused by the intense heat of gunpowder, he opined that the shot to the right cheek was fired closer to the face than the fatal shot to the right temple.

The toppled metal chair with the dislodged seat indicated that some form of activity had occurred in the study room. One shot missed the deceased with the bullet landing on the floor near the black swivel chair. A chipped area on the floor was found beside that bullet. The location and size of this chipped area suggested that it could be a ricochet crease. The deceased’s legs and left arm were relatively free of bloodstains and no blood flow pattern due to gravitation was found from the gunshot wounds at the left arm and left thigh. This meant that after the deceased was shot at these parts of his body, he did not remain in an upright position for a long period of time. Blood from these wounds was unlikely to have dripped onto the floor of the study room. The shot to the right temple was likely to have been the final shot fired as the examination of the bloodstain patterns on the deceased’s shirt showed an absence of blood flow from the right temple to the shoulder which would have been expected if this shot had been one of the earlier ones.

From the significant presence of CSR at the computer table, the table near the window, the cabinet along the wall with the doorway and the doorway itself, Ms Lim opined that the pistol had been discharged near these objects. She also noted that the pistol in question, when held in the conventional manner with the gun sight upright, ejected cartridge cases mostly to the right.

It was possibly fortuitous that one shot out of the six fired missed the deceased. The deceased right temple was shot when he was floored. The accused intend to create physical injury when he fired the shots. His intention was not to injure - but to shoot to kill and he was succeeded.