On 26 May 2011, the date of her 36th birthday, Singaporean property agent Celine Ng Swee Peng (黄瑞萍 Huáng Ruìpíng) disappeared after she was last seen by her flatmate, who reported her missing two days after Ng's disappearance. According to the flatmate, she heard Ng telling her she wanted to go overseas during a drinks session at her condominium, before she went to sleep and later awoke to find Ng missing. The police questioned Ng's family and friends, who all publicized her case to seek information of her whereabouts, which remained a mystery for more than a month. The police eventually conducted a nationwide search and 41 days after Ng's disappearance, the police found a skeleton left in the forest along Clementi Road, and the skeletal remains were confirmed to be Ng's after some DNA tests.
Ng's 36-year-old flatmate Ang Soo Hoon (洪素云 Hóng Sùyún), who first reported Ng missing, was arrested as a suspect and charged with allegedly murdering Ng, and Ang admitted that she tried to assist Ng in a suicide attempt, but she was provoked into strangling Ng after the victim allegedly insulted her for being "useless" (due to Ang failing to smother her). Ang was subsequently convicted of manslaughter, stealing Ng's belongings and giving a false account of Ng's disappearance, and sentenced to 12 years and six months in prison on 16 July 2015.
Disappearance of Celine Ng
On 25 May 2011, a day before she supposedly disappeared, Celine Ng Swee Peng, a property agent, was celebrating her 36th birthday together with her friends at a bar in Fullerton Hotel. After the stroke of midnight and end of the birthday party, Ng, her flatmate Ang Soo Hoon, and three of their friends went to Ng's condominium at West Coast Crescent to have drinks and play card games until 3.30am on 26 May, when the three friends left Ng's residence.
On 26 May 2011, the date of Ng's 36th birthday, Ng was last seen at her condominium at around 4am. She was missing for two days since, and thus, her flatmate Ang Soo Hoon, also known as ASH (the initials of her full name), reported her missing at the West Coast Neighbourhood Police Post. Ang, who worked as a derivatives dealer at United Overseas Bank, told the duty officer, Corporal (Cpl) Muhammad Nazri Parjali, that she found Ng not present in her condominium when she woke up at 10am on the day she went missing. Ang said that she was alone with Ng hours before that, after their three friends went back home, and as the both of them continued to drink, Ang heard from Ng that she wanted to go for a short trip overseas but she refused Ang's offer to travel with her, and Ng "looked preoccupied", since Ang witnessed Ng feeling disappointed and had an outburst due to her call to a former girlfriend went unanswered. Ang said that she felt sleepy after that and she went back to bed in her own bedroom, and by the time she woke up, Ang found that Ng was missing, and her passport, some clothes and bag were also gone, and her calls to Ng went unanswered. Ang told the police that she helped to collect from Ng's mother some noodles and a red packet meant for her daughter, but she initially did not tell Ng's mother about Ng's disappearance to not make her worry. However, Ang failed to contact or locate Ng after several attempts, and after discussions with Ng's friends (who all similarly could not find Ng), Ang accompanied Ng's brother and mother to make the police report.
The police classified the case of Ng as a missing persons case. They also interviewed Ng's friends and family members, who all described her as a cheerful and jovial person, and they did not notice anything amiss from Ng's behaviour, and none of them heard about Ng's purported plan to go overseas. In June 2011, Ng's family and friends also publicized Ng's case on the local newspaper The New Paper, appealing for the public to offer them information to locate Ng. In an interview, Ng's flatmate Ang told the press that there was no reason for Ng to disappear, since she just bought her condominium six months before and loved her car, dog and family.
Discovery of Ng's skeleton Nationwide search and discovery After investigating for more than a month, the police were still unable to locate any clues on Ng's whereabouts, and their efforts drew a blank after nationwide searches in places like hospitals, prisons or institutions. The Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (ICA) also confirmed that Ng did not leave the country based on their records of people going in and out of Singapore. The police therefore suspected that something untoward might have happened to Ng, and assuming that Ng was possibly dead, the police conducted a nationwide search around the forested areas of Singapore, including forested areas nearby the National University of Singapore (NUS), West Coast Park and Kent Ridge Park, for possible human remains as part of their investigations.
After a search around Singapore from 29 June to 5 July 2011, the police turned their attention to Clementi Woods Park, where a team of officers discovered a complete set of a human skeleton hidden in the undergrowth, and despite a post-mortem examination by Dr George Paul, a forensic pathologist, he was unable to determine the cause of death and he speculated that the death of Ng might have occurred at least 41 days before, and the police also conducted forensic tests to identify the skeleton. When Celine Ng's family and friends received word of the finding, they feared the worst but they hoped that the skeleton did not belong to Ng. After a forensic dentist extracted a tooth from the deceased, and sent it for a DNA test, which was expected to take at least two or three weeks for a result to come out. Three days later, on 11 July 2011, the DNA profile of the tooth was found to be a match with the DNA profile of Celine Ng Swee Peng, after it was compared with the DNA profile lifted from Ng's comb. The confirmation brought much sadness to her loved ones and friends, who spent nearly two months to search for her. Ng's flatmate Ang Soo Hoon also spoke to reporters that she moved out of the flat to avoid from recalling with sadness the memories she had with Ng, with whom she had a long-term friendship.
Murder investigation and Ang's arrest After confirming that the skeleton belonged to the missing Celine Ng, the police re-classified her case as one of unnatural death, and began to look through a list of possible suspects, and they also returned to Ng's condominium to collect potential sources of evidence. After narrowing down their list, the police focused their attention on Ang Soo Hoon, Ng's flatmate who first made the report and the sole witness who claimed that Ng was preoccupied and moody before the disappearance, as well as the closest to Ng out of her friends. Ang was reportedly suspected as she was the last person together with Ng before the latter went missing, and she had the opportunity to dispose of the body should Ang was responsible for the death of Ng, and none of Ng's other friends were suspected, as only one of them was Ng's former girlfriend and was overseas at the time, while the rest did not have a relationship with Ng and their car was not captured returning to the condominium after they left, and none of them were aware of Ng's supposed plan to go overseas except for Ang.
Ang was therefore brought in for questioning over the death of Ng, after the police located her at East Coast Park. About 40 minutes after the start of questioning, Ang broke down before she regained her composure, and confessed that she had killed Ng. With this confession, Ang was placed under arrest for the alleged murder of Ng.
On 13 July 2011, 36-year-old Ang Soo Hoon was officially charged with the murder of Celine Ng Swee Peng, close to two months after Ng was reported missing. Veteran criminal lawyer Subhas Anandan was engaged to defend Ang during her upcoming murder trial. About 30 of Ng's friends showed up in the courtroom to watch the proceedings when Ang was first charged for the murder; Ang was reportedly red-eyed due to crying and lowered her head to not face the public gallery as she faced the charge sheet in court. Under the Singaporean Penal Code, an offence of murder carried the death penalty under Section 302 of the Penal Code, and Ang would possibly be hanged if she was found guilty of murder.
On 20 July 2011, Ang returned to court a second time, and was ordered to be further remanded for another week to assist in investigations. Ng's friends were also present in the courtroom. It was also suspected that more than one person could be involved in the murder, as another one of Ng's friends was uncontactable and thus classified as a suspect, although it ultimately came down to the conclusion that Ng's death was the work of a lone killer. Many friends of Ang and Ng described Ang as a mild-mannered and soft-spoken woman who could not bear to hurt even an ant, and people (including the neighbours) often mistook Ang as a man due to her boyish-looking features and bespectacled looks.
As of 15 July 2011, Ng's skeleton was still at the mortuary and not returned to the family. Eventually, on 30 July 2011, the skeletal remains of Ng were finally returned to her loved ones for funeral preparations. About 50 of Ng's loved ones and friends attended the funeral on 1 August 2011, and it was reported that Ang Soo Hoon's younger brother also went to the funeral to offer condolences to Ng.
Ang Soo Hoon's confession
Murder of Celine Ng
After her arrest, Ang Soo Hoon confessed to the murder of Celine Ng Swee Peng, and the following was Ang's version of events that took place on 26 May 2011, as recorded in her confession dated 12 July 2011.
Background information revealed that Ang, who first befriended Ng in 1995 while they were at Ngee Ann Polytechnic together, had known Ng for 16 years and they regarded each other as close friends. Ang, who was homosexual like Ng, briefly had an intimate relationship with Ng in 2010, while they lived together in Balestier Road. Although the couple broke up, their friendship remained strong and Ng herself would went on to date another woman. Ang and Ng continued to live together after Ng bought a new unit at West Coast Condominium. In 2009, both Ng and Ang, and a third friend established a cafe, although it was sold off in the end due to their respective commitments to other lines of work.
According to Ang, after they celebrated Ng's birthday at the Fullerton Hotel, Ang, Ng and their three friends returned to Ng's condominium for drinks until around 3.30am or 4am. After the friends left at 4am, Ang and Ng were left in the flat, and Ng tried calling a former girlfriend. Ang said that Ng became agitated when she did not get a reply despite the relationship having ended two years before, and Ang also heard Ng playing a Chinese song "Chuan Qi" (sang by Chinese singer Li Jian), which Ng would always listen to whenever she was upset. Ng was reportedly despondent that her former girlfriend was still going out with another woman, and Ang advised Ng to let go of her former girlfriend. Ang said that Ng asked her if she could help her to die, and Ang, who was reluctant, told her she did not know how, but Ang managed to stop Ng from lifting and bringing a dumbbell to her own head. Ng later asked Ang if she could use a pillow to smother her, but Ang, who placed a pillow onto her face and covered it, failed to smother Ng. Ng allegedly insulted her, berating Ang for being "useless" for her failure. This insult provoked Ang into losing her composure, and she angrily sling her arm around Ng's neck in an armlock and strangled her, while another arm was used to tighten the armlock. Ang continued holding on to Ng's neck with the armlock until she became exhausted, and according to Ang, it was then she checked and found that Ng had stopped breathing and fell motionless.
Disposal of Ng's body and facade