Feng Jianyu (murder victim)

The Yishun triple murders case was a series of three violent murders of three women in a rented flat in Yishun, Singapore in 2008.

The suspect, Wang Zhijian, was the boyfriend of one of the two adult women living in the flat, and Wang, together with the victims, were from Mainland China.

Wang was alleged to have murdered both his girlfriend and her child, and tried to kill the other two tenants - also a mother-daughter pair - who lived in the next room.

The daughter survived the attack but her mother was killed.

Wang faced three capital charges of murder and one charge of attempted murder (the attempted murder charge was stood down by the prosecution).

He was convicted of one murder charge and two reduced culpable homicide charges and sentenced to death by the High Court of Singapore.

Wang appealed against his death sentence but the Court of Appeal of Singapore dismissed Wang's appeal and convicted him of two more charges of murder after the simultaneous hearing of the prosecution's appeal against Wang's two culpable homicide charges.

On 19 September 2008, at around 12.50 am, police received a report that a woman had fallen from one of the flats and her body was found lying motionless on the ground floor nearby the void deck of a HDB block in Yishun.

A unit from Ang Mo Kio Police Division arrived at the scene to investigate the fall.

A resident of the area told police that on the night itself when the woman's body was found, he heard voices of a few women, which look like an argument of sorts.

At around midnight, the man heard the sound of furniture being thrown, and a man shouting, as though he was chopping something.

He tried to look into one of the units where The Sounds came from but the lights were off.

The women's cries slowly diminished, until he heard a 'thud' accompanied with a scream, which came from the woman who fell to her death.

Another witness stated that he saw some people driving away from the void deck, and he was not sure if these men were related to the death of the woman.

A search by the police in the HDB block led to a discovery of blood stains on the door of a flat on the sixth floor.

The police knocked the door but a male occupant refused to open the door.

The Singapore Civil Defence Force was called in to force an entry into the flat.

On entering the unit, the police found the male occupant and also three women, one adult and two teenagers, who were slashed and stabbed in a kitchen toilet and one of the bedrooms.

One of the teenagers, who was found in the toilet, was found to be alive when the police discovered her and was immediately taken to Tan Tock Seng Hospital for treatment.

The other two women were found dead inside the bedroom, being stabbed a total of 98 times.

The male suspect, whose fingers were injured, was also arrested by the police; the man did not resist capture.

The flat was also being searched by police to collect evidence.

The suspect and his victims were said to be from Mainland China.

Neighbours were shocked to hear about the alleged murders committed by the suspect, who they said was the boyfriend of one of the tenants.

Residents told newspapers and police that throughout the past two weeks before the murders, there had been sounds of agitated arguments between the suspect and his girlfriend coming from the unit a few times each week, and the night before the crimes, the couple were also arguing.

The case was a shock to the nation and was regarded as the worst murder case ever committed in Singapore for at least the last 15 years.

The police investigations, now led by Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) Jason Lim, had found that there were four possible murder weapons stained with the blood of the victims from the flat, which consisted of a serrated knife, a chopper, a knife and a metal spatula.

The three deceased victims were identified as a 41-year-old peidu mama called Zhang Meng, Zhang's 17-year-old daughter Feng Jianyu and Zhang's 36-year-old flatmate and fellow peidu mama Yang Jie (who fell to her death).

The survivor was Yang Jie's 15-year-old daughter, who was reportedly also Feng's classmate from the same school.

The survivor, being a minor below 16 years old, was not named in the media in accordance to Singapore law and the girl's published photographs were censored to not publicly reveal her true facial appearance, although her face was revealed in a Evangel Family Church page.

A day after his arrest, the suspect, Zhang Meng's 42-year-old boyfriend Wang Zhijian, was charged with murder for the death of Zhang Meng.

Wang potentially faces the mandatory death sentence if he was found guilty of murder under the laws of Singapore.

Later, on 4 October 2008, Wang was brought back to court again, where the prosecution additionally charged him with two more counts of murder for the deaths of Yang and Feng, and one count of attempted murder for attacking Yang's daughter.

The attempted murder charge for the grievous attack conducted on Li was later stood down and the prosecution proceeded with the triple murder charges against Wang for the murders of Zhang, Feng and Yang.

Many relatives of the victims, including Zhang's sister and brother-in-law and Yang's elder sister and mother, came all the way from China to identify their bodies for funeral preparations after the completion of the forensic pathologist's autopsies of the three dead women.

Zhang's family, who arranged for the cremation of Zhang and Feng's corpses on 26 September 2008, reportedly stated that it was no longer important to know what will be the sentence the courts could give to the alleged killer, given that the lives are already lost and cannot be revived.

Yang's daughter was reportedly stable at the time of a news report dated 24 September 2008.

Another report also revealed that the teenage girl's school's vice principal and three of the girl's classmates also went to visit the girl under police supervision to help her cope with the difficult times.

It was also confirmed that the survivor will come to court to testify once the trial of Wang started.

Upon receiving news of the arrest of Wang and the three alleged murders of Chinese women occurring in Yishun, the Chinese Embassy in Singapore became concerned and urged the local authorities to investigate in the case as quickly as possible in order to make sure that justice was served and the killer be severely punished.