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12-3amproductions · 6 years ago

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Ritual Murders: The Adrian Lim Case

Hello everyone! Welcome to another bizarre case study. Today, we will be covering a murder by a Singaporean who was madly obsessed in deities and the rituals that came along with them, to the extent of killing innocent victims and offering them to the idols as sacrifice.

Two children were killed in the seventh-story flat, in Block 12, Toa Payoh Lorong 7.

In the early 1980s, Adrian Lim, a charlatan medium seen by many as the very embodiment of evil, and his two “holy” wives (Tan Mui Choo and Hao Kah Hong), kidnapped, tortured and killed a pair of children (Agnes Ng Siew Heok and Ghazali bin Marzuki).

Background of Adrian Lim

Born on 6 January 1942, Adrian Lim was the eldest son of a low-income family. Described at the trial by his sister as a hot-tempered boy, he dropped out of secondary school and worked a short stint as an informant for the Internal Security Department, joining the cable radio company Rediffusion Singapore in 1962. For three years, he installed and serviced Rediffusion sets as an electrician before being promoted to bill collector.

In April 1967, Lim married his childhood sweetheart with whom he had two children. He converted to Catholicism for his marriage. Lim and his family lived in rented rooms until his 1970 purchase of a three-room flat—a seventh floor unit (unit number 467F) of Block 12, Toa Payoh.

Lim started part-time practice as a spirit medium in 1973. He rented a room where he attended to the women—most of whom were bargirls, dance hostesses, and prostitutes—introduced to him by his landlord. Lim's customers also included superstitious men and elderly females, whom he cheated only of cash. He had learned the trade from a bomoh called "Uncle Willie" and prayed to gods of various religions despite his Catholic baptism.

The Hindu goddess Kali and "Phragann", which Lim described as a Siamese sex god, were among the spiritual entities he called on in his rituals. Lim deceived his clients with several confidence tricks; his most effective gimmick, known as the "needles and egg" trick, duped many to believe that he had supernatural abilities. After blackening needles with soot from a burning candle, Lim carefully inserted them into a raw egg and sealed the hole with powder. In his rituals, he passed the egg several times over his client while chanting and asked her to crack open the egg. Unaware that the egg had been tampered with, the client would be convinced by the sight of the black needles that evil spirits were harassing her.

Lim particularly preyed on gullible girls who had deep personal problems. He promised them that he could solve their woes and increase their beauty through a ritual massage. After Lim and his client had stripped, he would knead her body—including her genitals—with Phragann's idol and have sex with her. Lim's treatments also included an electro-shock therapy based on that used on mental patients. After placing his client's feet in a tub of water and attaching wires to her temples, Lim passed electricity through her. The shocks, he assured her, would cure headaches and drive away evil spirits

Background of Tan Mui Choo

Catherine Tan Mui Choo was referred to Lim by a fellow bargirl, who claimed the spirit medium could cure ailments and depression. Tan, at that time, was grieving the death of her grandmother to whom she had been devoted. Furthermore, her estrangement from her parents weighed on her mind; having been sent away at the age of 13 to a vocational centre (a home mostly for juvenile delinquents), she felt unwanted by them. Tan's visits to Lim became regular, and their relationship grew intimate. In 1975 she moved into his flat on his insistence.

To allay his wife's suspicions that he was having an affair with Tan, Lim swore an oath of denial before a picture of Jesus Christ. However, she discovered the truth and moved out with their children a few days later, divorcing Lim in 1976. Lim quit his Rediffusion job and became a full-time medium. He enjoyed brisk business, at one point receiving S$6,000–7,000 (US$2,838–3,311) a month from a single client. In June 1977, Lim and Tan registered their marriage.

Lim dominated Tan through beatings, threats, and lies. He persuaded her to prostitute herself to supplement their income. He also convinced her that he needed to fornicate with young women to stay healthy; thus, Tan assisted him in his business, preparing their clients for his pleasure. Lim's influence over Tan was strong; on his encouragement and promise that sex with a younger man would preserve her youth, Tan copulated with a Malay teenager and even with her younger brother. The boy was not her only sibling to be influenced by Lim; the medium had earlier seduced Tan's younger sister and tricked her into selling her body and having sex with the two youths. Despite the abuses, Tan lived with Lim, enjoying the dresses, beauty products and slimming courses bought with their income.

Background of Hoe Kah Hong

Born on 10 September 1955, Hoe Kah Hong was eight years old when her father died; she was sent to live with her grandmother until she was fifteen. When she returned to her mother and siblings she was constantly required to give way to her elder sister Lai Ho. Under the perception that her mother favoured her sister, Hoe became disgruntled, showing her temper easily.

In 1979, her mother brought Lai to Lim for treatment, and became convinced of Lim's powers by his "needles and egg" trick. Believing that Hoe's volatile temper could also be cured by Lim, the old woman brought her younger daughter to the medium. After witnessing the same trick, Hoe became Lim's loyal follower. Lim desired to make Hoe one of his "holy wives", even though she was already married to Benson Loh Ngak Hua. To achieve his goal, Lim sought to isolate Hoe from her family by feeding her lies. He claimed that her family were immoral people who practiced infidelity, and that Loh was an unfaithful man who would force her into prostitution. Hoe believed Lim's words, and after going through a rite with him, she was declared by the medium as his "holy wife". She no longer trusted her husband and family, and became violent towards her mother. Three months after she had first met Lim, Hoe moved from her house and went to live with him.

Loh sought his wife at Lim's flat and ended up staying to observe her treatment. He was persuaded by her to participate in the electro-shock therapies. In the early hours of 7 January 1980, Loh sat with Hoe, their arms locked together and their feet in separate tubs of water. Lim applied a large voltage to Loh, who was electrocuted, while Hoe was stunned into unconsciousness. When she woke, Lim requested her to lie to the police about Loh's death. Hoe repeated the story Lim had given her, saying that her husband had been electrocuted in their bedroom when he tried to switch on a faulty electric fan in the dark. The coroner recorded an open verdict, and the police made no further investigations.

Despite her antipathy towards Loh, Hoe was affected by his death. Her sanity broke; she started hearing voices and hallucinating, seeing her dead husband. At the end of May she was admitted to the Woodbridge Hospital. There, psychologists diagnosed her condition as schizophrenia and started appropriate treatments. Hoe made a remarkably quick recovery; by the first week of July, she was discharged. She continued her treatment with the hospital; follow-up checks showed that she was in a state of remission. Hoe's attitude towards her mother and other family members began to improve after her stay in the hospital, although she continued to live with Lim and Tan.

The murder:

The first victim was little Agnes Ng - curled up in the fetal position inside a travel bag by the lift landing. She was discovered by a 25-year-old carpenter at the ground floor of Block 11, Toa Payoh Lorong 7, as he headed back home after a night out at the movies on Jan 25, 1981.

“They found the bag, opened the zipper and out popped her head,” said retired police officer S.K. Menon, who was then the officer-in-charge of the CID’s Special Investigation Section.

He did not know it then, but the nine-year-old girl was the first of the two ritual murder victims of Adrian Lim, an unemployed 39-year-old who claimed to be a medium, his wife Catherine Tan Mui Choo and his mistress Hoe Kah Hong.

Agnes was abducted by Hoe at the Church of the Risen Christ in Toa Payoh and taken to Lim’s flat. She was injected with a sedative and then suffocated. She was also sexually assaulted by Lim.

A week after her death, either Tan or Hoe, called Agnes’ mother threatening to “chop” Agnes’ sister up.

But with few clues at the scene where the body was found, cracking the case was difficult, said Mr Menon. The pressure was truly on when the trio’s second victim, Ghazali Marzuki, 10, was found almost two weeks after Agnes.

“He was just lying there on the grass patch,” said Mr Menon, 78, when asked how the body was found, just metres from Lim’s block.

Ghazali had been playing with his cousins in a playground in Clementi the day before when they were approached by Hoe asking for help.

Ghazali was taken to Lim’s flat, where he was drugged, choked then drowned. There were also three burn marks on his back and a puncture on his arm.

This time, there was a trail of blood leading from Ghazali’s body all the way to Lim’s residence at Block 12.

“He did not realise the body was dripping blood from the nose,” said Mr Menon. “The blood, that was his undoing.”

Officers cordoned off the area and searched the block house-to-house. When they got to the seventh floor, they found Lim, dressed in a shirt and pants, seemingly about to make a run for it, said Mr Menon.

“(The house) was very eerie, it was lit with amber light, and right in front when you go in is the altar.”

Officers found various religious items in the flat, and on the altar Mr Menon mentioned, there were crucifixes and Hindu and Chinese idols, some of which were smeared with blood.

Suspicions were aroused further when a drop of blood was spotted on the kitchen floor.

Description of victim Agnes Ng:

Agnes Ng Siew Hock was a nine-year-old who went to the Holy Innocent’s Chinese Girl School.

She was the youngest of nine siblings.

She was last seen alive by her sister Pauline and a friend at the Church of Risen Christ in Toa Payoh at about 4pm, on Jan 24, 1981.

She was there waiting for her sister to finish classes before returning home together.

Her body was found in a brown vinyl bag on Jan 25, at about 2.20am near a staircase at Block 11 Toa Payoh by a man returning from a midnight show. Adrian Lim’s flat was at Block 12.

Her home at Block 233 was not far away from where she was found.

She had been sexually assaulted and suffocated — it seems by a hand covering her nose and mouth.

According to a forensic expert during the trial, it would have taken her 10 minutes to die.

Description of victim Ghazali Marzuki:

Ghazali Marzuki, who studied in Henry Park Primary School, was 10.

He was staying with his grandmother at Block 344, Clementi Avenue 5, on Feb 6 for the Chinese New Year holidays.

While at a playground with two cousins, a woman approached them.

She asked for help to collect some things from a friend’s house.

Ghazali agreed to help, and followed her into a taxi.

That was the last time he was seen alive.

In the early hours of Feb 7, Mr Fung Joon Yong, who lived at Block 12 in Toa Payoh, saw Catherine Tan stepping out of a lift, carrying a child over her shoulder. Adrian Lim was with her.

They went in the direction of Blocks 10 and 11.

Later that morning, Ghazali’s body was found near a hedge just in front of Block 10. The boy had been drugged with a sedative and drowned — his head pushed into a tub of water.

Burn marks were also found, but these were believed to have been caused by electrocution after he died.

Arresting the 3 murderers:

In a search of the area where Ghazali was found, police were led to the lift at Blk 12 where a resident had seen Catherine Tan with the boy. A bloodstain was found in the vicinity.

The police decided to search the higher floors.

More blood stains were found between the fifth and sixth storey staircase and the staircase leading to the seventh storey.

They decided to check the units on the seventh storey, the first of which was Adrian Lim’s. He was in the corridor. They spoke and Lim agreed to a search of his home.

It was very messy inside. In the kitchen, police found what seemed to be a bloodstain on the floor.

More police were called in to conduct a thorough search.

Tan and Hoe Kah Hong had returned by this time. Lim called them his wife and girlfriend, and told police they lived together.

A pair of slippers, shorts and a handkerchief — all stained were blood — were discovered. They belonged to Lim. A bloodstained blouse belonging to Hoe was found in a pail.

Pills containing the drug found in Ghazali were seized, along with a syringe believed to contain his blood. Strands of hair that seemed like Ghazali’s were found under a carpet and under a sofa.

Lim, Tan and Hoe were arrested and the next day, charged with murder.

Why did Adrian Lim and his accomplice murder the two children?

With Hoe and Tan as his assistants, Lim continued his trade, tricking more women into giving him money and sex. By the time of his arrest, he had 40 "holy wives". In the late 1980s, he was arrested and charged with rape.

His accuser was Lucy Lau, a door-to-door cosmetic salesgirl, who had met Lim when she was promoting beauty products to Tan. On 19 October, Lim told Lau that a ghost was haunting her, but he could exorcise it with his sex rituals. She was unconvinced, but the medium persisted. He secretly mixed two capsules of Dalmadorm, a sedative, into a glass of milk and offered it to her, claiming it had holy properties.

Lau became groggy after drinking it, which allowed Lim to take advantage of her. For the next few weeks, he continued to abuse her by using drugs or threats. In November, after Lim had given her parents a loan smaller than the amount they had requested, Lau made a police report about his treatment of her. Lim was arrested on charges of rape, and Tan for abetting him. Out on bail, Lim persuaded Hoe to lie that she was present at the alleged rape but saw no crime committed. This failed to stop the police enquiries; Lim and Tan had to extend their bail, in person, at the police station every fortnight.

Frustrated, Lim plotted to distract the police with a series of child murders. Moreover, he believed that sacrifices of children to Kali would persuade her supernaturally to draw the attention of the police away from him. Lim pretended to be possessed by Kali, and convinced Tan and Hoe that the goddess wanted them to kill children to wreak vengeance on Lau. He also told them Phragann demanded that he have sex with their female victims.

On 24 January 1981, Hoe spotted Agnes at a nearby church and lured her to the flat. The trio plied her with food and drink that was laced with Dalmadorm. After Agnes became groggy and fell asleep, Lim sexually abused her. Near midnight, the trio smothered Agnes with a pillow and drew her blood, drinking and smearing it on a portrait of Kali. Following that, they drowned the girl by holding down her head in a pail of water. Finally, Lim used his electro-shock therapy device to "make doubly sure that she was dead". They stuffed her body in a bag and dumped it near the lift at Block 11.

Ghazali suffered a similar fate when he was brought by Hoe to the flat on 6 February. He, however, proved resistant to the sedatives, taking a long time to fall asleep. Lim decided to tie up the boy as a precaution; however, the boy awoke and struggled. Panicking, the trio delivered karate chops to Ghazali's neck and stunned him. After drawing his blood, they proceeded to drown their victim. Ghazali struggled, vomiting and losing control of his bowels as he died. Blood kept streaming from his nose after his death. While Tan stayed behind to clean the flat, Lim and Hoe disposed of the body. Lim noticed that a trail of blood led to their flat, so he and his accomplices cleaned as much as they could of these stains before sunrise. When the trail of blood led the police to their flat, this resulted in their arrest.

Battle of psychiatrist in the supreme justice court:

No one doubted that Lim, Tan, and Hoe had killed the children. Their defence was based on convincing the judges that medically, the accused were not in total control of themselves during the crimes. The bulk of the trial was therefore a battle between expert witnesses called by both sides. Dr Wong Yip Chong, a senior psychiatrist in private practice, believed that Lim was mentally ill at the time of the crimes. Claiming to be "judging by the big picture, and not fussing over contradictions", he said that Lim's voracious sexual appetite and deluded belief in Kali were characteristics of a mild manic depression. The doctor also said that only an unsound mind would dump the bodies close to his home when his plan was to distract the police. In rebuttal, the prosecution's expert witness, Dr Chee Kuan Tsee, a psychiatrist at Woodbridge Hospital, said that Lim was "purposeful in his pursuits, patient in his planning and persuasive in his performance for personal power and pleasure". In Dr Chee's opinion, Lim had indulged in sex because through his role as a medium he obtained a supply of women who were willing to go to bed with him. Furthermore, his belief in Kali was religious in nature, not delusional. Lim's use of religion for personal benefit indicated full self-control. Lastly, Lim had consulted doctors and freely taken sedatives to alleviate his insomnia, a condition which, according to Dr Chee, sufferers from manic depression fail to recognise.

Dr R. Nagulendran, a consultant psychiatrist, testified that Tan was mentally impaired by reactive psychotic depression. According to him she was depressed before she met Lim, due to her family background. Physical abuse and threats from Lim deepened her depression; drug abuse led her to hallucinate and believe the medium's lies. Dr Chee disagreed; he said that Tan had admitted to being quite happy with the material lifestyle Lim gave to her, enjoying fine clothes and beauty salon treatments. A sufferer from reactive psychotic depression would not have paid such attention to her appearance. Also, Tan had earlier confessed to knowing Lim was a fraud, but changed her stance in court to claim she was acting completely under his influence. Although Dr Chee had neglected Lim's physical abuse of Tan in his judgment, he was firm in his opinion that Tan was mentally sound during the crimes. Both Dr Nagulendran and Dr Chee agreed that Hoe suffered from schizophrenia long before she met Lim, and that her stay in Woodbridge Hospital had helped her recovery. However, while Dr Nagulendran was convinced that Hoe suffered a relapse during the time of the child killings, Dr Chee pointed out that none of the Woodbridge doctors saw any signs of relapse during the six months of her follow-up checks (16 July 1980 – 31 January 1981). If Hoe had been as severely impaired by her condition as Dr Nagulendran described, she would have become an invalid. Instead, she methodically abducted and helped kill a child on two occasions. Ending his testimony, Dr Chee stated that it was incredible that three people with different mental illnesses should share a common delusion of receiving a request to kill from a god.

In their closing speeches, the defence tried to reinforce the portrayal of their clients as mentally disturbed individuals. Cashin said that Lim was a normal man until his initiation into the occult, and that he was clearly divorced from reality when he entered the "unreasonable world of atrociousness", acting on his delusions to kill children in Kali's name. Jeyaretnam said that due to her depression and Lim's abuse, Tan was just "a robot", carrying out orders without thought. Isaac simply concluded, "[Hoe's] schizophrenic mind accepted that if the children were killed, they would go to heaven and not grow up evil like her mother and others." The defence criticised Dr Chee for failing to recognise their clients' symptoms.

The prosecution started its closing speech by drawing attention to the "cool and calculating" manner in which the children were killed. Knight also argued that the accused could not have shared the same delusion, and only brought it up during the trial. The "cunning and deliberation" displayed in the acts could not have been done by a deluded person.Tan helped Lim because "she loved [him]", and Hoe was simply misled into helping the crimes. Urging the judges to consider the ramifications of their verdict, Knight said: "My Lords, to say that Lim was less than a coward who preyed on little children because they could not fight back; killed them in the hope that he would gain power or wealth and therefore did not commit murder, is to make no sense of the law of murder. It would lend credence to the shroud of mystery and magic he has conjured up his practices and by which he managed to frighten, intimidate and persuade the superstitious, the weak and the gullible into participating in the most lewd and obscene acts."

Judgement:

On 25 May 1983, crowds massed outside the building, waiting for the outcome of the trial. Due to limited seating, only a few were allowed inside to hear Justice Sinnathuray's delivery of the verdict, which took 15 minutes. The two judges were not convinced that the accused were mentally unsound during the crimes. They found Lim to be "abominable and depraved" in carrying out his schemes. Viewing her interviews with the expert witnesses as admissions of guilt, Sinnathuray and Chua found Tan to be an "artful and wicked person", and a "willing [party] to [Lim's] loathsome and nefarious acts".The judges found Hoe to be "simple" and "easily influenced". Although she suffered from schizophrenia, they noted that she was in a state of remission during the murders; hence she should bear full responsibility for her actions. All three defendants were found guilty of murder and sentenced to be hanged. The two women did not react to their sentences. On the other hand, Lim beamed and cried, "Thank you, my Lords!", as he was led out.

Lim accepted his fate; the women did not, and appealed against their sentences. Tan hired Francis Seow to appeal for her, and the court again assigned Isaac to Hoe. The lawyers asked the appeal court to reconsider the mental states of their clients during the murders, charging that the trial judges in their deliberations had failed to consider this point. The Court of Criminal Appeal reached their decision in August 1986. The appeal judges which consist of Chief Justice Wee Chong Jin, Justice Lai Kew Chai and Justice L P Thean reaffirmed the decision of their trial counterparts, noting that as finders of facts, judges have the right to discount medical evidence in the light of evidence from other sources. Tan and Hoe's further appeals to London's Privy Council and Singapore President Wee Kim Weemet with similar failures.

Having exhausted all their avenues for pardon, Tan and Hoe calmly faced their fates. While waiting on death row the trio were counselled by Catholic priests and nuns. In spite of the reputation that surrounded Lim, Father Brian Doro recalled the murderer as a "rather friendly person". When the day of execution loomed, Lim asked Father Doro for absolution and Holy Communion. Likewise, Tan and Hoe had Sister Gerard Fernandez as their spiritual counsellor. The nun converted the two female convicts to Catholicism, and they received forgiveness and Holy Communion during their final days. On 25 November 1988 the trio were given their last meal and led to the hangman's noose. Lim smiled throughout his last walk. After the sentences were carried out, the three murderers were given a short Catholic funeral mass by Father Doro, and cremated on the same day.

The children who escaped death from them:

Before Agnes Ng and Ghazali Marzuki, there were a few children who came to the apartment of Adrian Lim.

The first one was lured by Hoe, she got a girl aged 10 to follow her from Toa Payoh Central. But Lim rejected the girl because she was Indian and the deity he worshipped, called Kaliammam, was Hindu.

Hoe picked up another girl from Clementi. She was Chinese. But Lim said she was too skinny.

The third girl she brought back made Lim panic when she called her friend on the phone, and told Lim that the friend had seen her being led away by a woman.

There was also another child who got released by Adrian Lim because she was told that “The gods do not want you”. She happened to be prayed over by a pastor who happened to be her teacher back then and was most likely covered by the protection and blood of Jesus.

Conclusion:

First of all, we have to make this clear that no religion would approve of human sacrifice except for Satanism. No god would appreciate suicides or the death of someone as a gift.

The Hindu god, Goddess Kali is a strong motherly figure in Hinduism and is well respected for her motherly-love. She is well known to ward off evil spirits and slay demons for peace to be in order. The demon Kali (which most people confuse with Goddess Kali), is source of the most cruel and evil demon in Hinduism. Thus, Adrian Lim could have been having delusional thoughts with the demon Kali instead of Goddess Kali.

Second of all, religious beliefs do impact someone positively and sometimes negatively depending on the influence of it. In this case, Adrian Lim was obviously the bad influence. Teaching false and negative things and bringing harm to people instead of good. No religion will ever bring harm to its own people.

Psychiatrists were brought in due to the hallucinated mind of the three killers and the different mental illness they were having. It is important to pin point if they were really affected by their unconscious state of mind or just for their own evil joy. Adrian Lim showed no regrets or remorse towards his actions and could even smile before the death sentence. It is hence also important to understand the different religious teachings and their beliefs to avoid misleading people into the negativity.

Well, rest assured 12-3AMProductions will be doing articles on the different religions to educate people about the different magic circle groups created by us humans. Of course, words are a really powerful tool which many people use to brainwash others and mislead them into believing ridiculous things. In this case, the murders’ reasoning by Adrian Lim and his accomplices was of total bullshit with the claim that the sacrifices were requested by God. Justice has been served to the victims and religion will never be a strong reason to escape killings.

Thirdly, we do want to mention about the punishment of these vicious murderers after they have perished in hell. They are not going to be given a chance by god obviously. And all of them will be going to purgatory if they had REALLY been converted to Catholic. Otherwise based on their skin color and nationality, they will be facing the Buddhism hell and accept the punishment there. Their pain will never stop even when they are dead, the worst pain is given by god and not in the living world.

That is all for the case on Adrian Lim, we hope that you all have gained knowledge and awareness from this case study and do remember to like and reblog. Thank you once again for the amazing support, we will see you in our next article and case :)

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