Anyone remember the body in the chest story that came our circa 1977.
British Referigeration expert and expat murdered his Thai wife in one of the hotel in Orchard Road. He cut her up and placed her parts in a chest and sealed it airtight due to his background. Subsequently when he found permannent accommodation he took the chest with him and kept it in his home. He raised his only son by himself and told relatives the wife had run away.
Years later, when he was on his death bed in SGH, he told his son who then called the Police and they found the body parts in the chest in their home in Cairnhill.
The American, a refrigeration expert killed his Thai wife at the Hilton hotel, chopped her up into pieces and moved them to his apartment on the 6th floor of Cairnhill Court
which he rented from the GM of Hilton hotel, the late Mr Lim Ewe Hin.
Poor Ewe Hin got to know him as a long staying guest of the Hilton hotel and was happy to rent to him his Cairnhill Court apartment.
He summoned his son who was living in the USA to his deathbed in Melbourne and confessed the killing of his Thai wife and concealing her body parts in a chest in Cairnhill
Court. After his funeral in Melbourne his son came back to S'pore to report to the police and according to the Pinoy maid she was surprised that there was not stench of smell
during the 5 years she worked for him.
After the discovery of this gruesome murder, poor Ewe Hin couldn't sell nor rent out the apartment for about 8 years and eventually had to sell it to an Indonesian for $290,000
in the late 80's.
In 2003 Cairnhill Court was sold en-bloc to Li Ka Shing and each owner collected $4m.