Marital woes and gambling debts contributed to man’s suicide (ST 10 Nov)
A casket arriving ahead of the wake for Mr Ng Chee Kiang and his children – five-year-old Xavier and Cheryl, aged three. — ST PHOTO
HOURS before he fell to his death from his block of flats while his children lay dead inside their home, Mr Ng Chee Kiang was seen walking to a shop to buy 4D lottery tickets.
A neighbour in Ang Mo Kio Avenue 10 said she ran into him at a traffic light junction at about 9am last Saturday.
The 56-year-old housewife, who wanted to be known only as Madam Tang, was going to the same shop to buy tickets for her husband.
She said: ‘He asked me in Cantonese: ‘Auntie, are you going to buy 4D?’ He was very cheerful and looked normal.’
But by evening, his demeanour had taken a drastic turn.
At around 9pm, the 39-year-old lay dying at the foot of Block 543.
His flat on the sixth floor had been set alight, presumably by Mr Ng himself, minutes before his fall.
In one of the bedrooms, his two children, Xavier Ng Wei Yi, five, and Cheryl Ng Shi Hui, three, lay dead on a bed, face up and side by side.
Xavier is said to have suffered neck injuries while Cheryl was found with facial injuries.
Their bodies were not burnt. They were sheltered from the flames as the bedroom door to the living room was shut. The fire is believed to have started in the living room.
Mr Ng’s wife, 28-year-old saleswoman Ong Lay Choo, and the family’s maid were out while the tragic events were taking place.
Police have classified the case as murder-cum-suicide.
Colleagues and friends point to marital problems as the likely reasons which might have triggered the chain of events last Saturday evening.
A colleague at Japanese food specialist PTC-Nakajima Suisan, where Mr Ng worked as a manager, said the couple began having problems about a year ago.
The co-worker said Mr Ng had occasionally confided in him about his marital woes.
He declined to be named and would say only that ‘things were not good’ and that he last saw Mr Ng on Friday.
Senior technician Abdul Manaf, 55, who lived in the flat above Mr Ng’s, told The Straits Times he had heard the couple having a heated argument late on Monday last week.
Mr Abdul, who was returning from work at the time, said: ‘I heard them shouting at each other when I came out of the lift. I did not expect that as they seemed happy together.’
His wife had heard screams coming from the Ngs’ flat at about 9.45pm last Saturday.
Other neighbours speculated that Mr Ng may have incurred gambling debts. Loan sharks had scribbled ‘0$P$’ – a signature mark for pressuring debtors to pay up – on the stairway wall beside Mr Ng’s flat. The scribbling has since been whitewashed over.
About 50 people were gathered at the block yesterday when Mr Ng’s body arrived at about 3pm for the wake.
But it was when the bodies of the two children arrived two hours later that Madam Ong broke down and had to be supported by relatives.
Earlier yesterday, Madam Ong, accompanied by two relatives, had gone to a playschool a few blocks away which her daughter had been attending since January.
She collected her daughter’s homework books, containing drawings.
Cheryl’s teacher, Miss Sun, 25, said the little girl had not been in class last Friday morning.
The teacher added that she had never missed class unless she was sick.
She also said that Cheryl was obedient, mixed well with the other children and loved to dance: ‘She was always smiling.’
When asked if Cheryl’s classmates knew what had happened, Miss Sun said: ‘We don’t intend to tell the kids but their parents should know about it.’
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