Pod Insights Casefile True Crime Case 318: Tay Chow Lyang & Tony Tan Poh Chuan About this episode On September 15 2003, Singaporean student Ram Tiwary awoke in his Sydney apartment to find his two flatmates, Tony Tan Poh Chuan and Tay Chow Lyang, had been brutally murdered. A suspicious car seen in the area leads police on a hunt for the killers, until another suspect emerges closer to home.
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Narration – Anonymous Host https://www.instagram.com/caseys.snaps/
Research & writing – Elsha McGill
Creative direction – Milly Raso
Production & music – Mike Migas http://mikemigas.com/
Audio editing – Anthony Telfer
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Transcript 13,406 words · 5 speakers
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1:50 Speaker 00 Our episodes deal with serious and often distressing incidents. If you feel at any time you need support, please contact your local crisis centre. For suggested phone numbers for confidential support and for a more detailed list of content warnings, please see the show notes for this episode on your app or on our website.
2:16 Speaker 00 It was just after 2:30pm on Monday, September 15, 2003, when two ambulances turned into Barker Street, a leafy residential road in the eastern Sydney suburb of Kingsford. The ambulances pulled up outside a red brick two-storey duplex with a tidy front garden and a low-brick fence. As they parked, a panic-stricken, dishevelled young man with his jumper on inside-out raced towards them. The man was 24-year-old Ram Tiwary. Ram lived on the second floor of the duplex with his two 26-year-old flatmates, Tay Chow Lyang and Tony Tan Po Chuan.
3:00 Speaker 00 All three were engineering students from Singapore attending classes at the nearby University of New South Wales. Upon seeing Ram, the paramedics quickly locked their doors. They were understandably on edge, having been called to the property about a suspected double homicide.
3:22 Speaker 00 One of the paramedics rolled her window down a crack to hear what Ram had to say. He looked bewildered and was clearly in a state of distress. Ram told the paramedics that he was the one who'd called for help. Through heavy breaths, Ram explained that he'd found one of his flatmates on the floor, bloody and frothing at the mouth. As he spoke, the paramedics noted that Ram seemed distracted by the sight of his own hands and kept looking down at them. They were smeared with blood.
4:21 Speaker 00 Police arrived on Barker Street moments later. As they made their way towards the duplex, Ram Tiwary struggled to make sense of what he'd seen. The 24-year-old student, who was born in India but raised in Brunei and Singapore, had been in Australia for just over three years. He'd been granted a mechanical engineering scholarship by the Singaporean Armed Forces after completing his national service. To supplement his scholarship, Ram worked part-time as a security guard, which meant he often caught up on sleep during the day.
4:59 Speaker 00 Ram told the first responding sergeant that he'd been sleeping in his bedroom when the sounds of the television blaring in the lounge room and something falling woke him. Thinking one of his flatmates had simply dropped something, he went back to sleep. Sometime later, Ram woke again to a commotion. Over the loud volume of the TV, he heard someone run past his bedroom door. Ram thought he heard his flatmate, Tony Tan Po Chuan, scream “Help”, but he couldn't be sure.
5:36 Speaker 00 Then, someone pounded on Ram's door. Ram's first thought was that someone was attempting to break in. Then, he heard a loud bang, as though metal was being hit against something. This noise continued for what felt like several minutes. Still suspecting a break-in, Ram locked his bedroom door from the inside until the sound finally stopped.
6:05 Speaker 00 He waited awhile before opening his door and peering out into the hall. To his left, he saw that the back door in the lounge room was slightly ajar. To his right, Tony was slumped next to the front door with his back against the wall, his bloodied head resting on his chest.
6:26 Speaker 00 Blood had pooled around him and a baseball bat and kitchen knife lay by his side.
6:33 Speaker 00 Terrified that whoever had hurt Tony was still in the apartment, Ram picked up the bat for protection and made his way to the back door. That was when he saw his other flatmate, Tay Chuan Leung, lying behind the lounge room couch, his head completely bashed in and blood everywhere.
6:54 Speaker 00 Ram quickly closed and locked the back door, then raced back to his bedroom with the bat. He locked himself in, pulling a cabinet across the door as a barricade and used his mobile phone to call emergency services. Ram told the operator, "I need the ambulance and the police, there's been a murder. My two friends are lying dead outside, there's blood all over the place."
7:23 Speaker 00 The operator asked exactly what had happened. Ram replied, "I have no idea, I was asleep and I heard this screaming. When I turned, my two friends are dead."
7:37 Speaker 00 He said there was a baseball bat and a knife at the scene.
7:42 Speaker 00 The operator told Ram to stay put and wait for help to arrive. She then asked if his flatmates were definitely dead or possibly just unconscious. Ram said there was too much blood to tell.
7:58 Speaker 00 The operator asked if Ram knew CPR. He was well versed in CPR from his time in the military, but he didn't want to try. Both Tony and Chuan Leung's faces were so severely covered in blood that he didn't think he could do it. The operator asked Ram if it was safe for him to go back out and check if his flatmates were still breathing. Terror audible in his voice, Ram replied: "I'm not going back outside till somebody gets here. I'm not fucking going back outside. You want to break down the door? Fucking go ahead. I'm not fucking going back outside."
8:42 Speaker 00 When the operator told Ram that the paramedics had arrived, he took the bat and left his room. He walked up to Tony and saw foam around his mouth and bleeding from his head. He touched Tony's neck but couldn't feel a pulse. Tony wasn't breathing either. Not wanting to do anything else, Ram left the house via the back door and went to tell the waiting paramedics and police what had happened. In addition to being incredibly shaken by what he'd seen, Ram voiced disappointment in himself for not going outside when he heard Tony yell for help. "I didn't go out," he told the sergeant on the scene.
9:27 Speaker 00 "I should have, but didn't. After I heard somebody being hit, I should have opened the door, but didn't." Police climbed the small flight of stairs at the front of the duplex. While the lower level was occupied by the property's landlords, the second floor served as a convenient sharehouse for students attending the nearby University of New South Wales Kensington campus. It was a modest abode with four bedrooms, a kitchen, a bathroom and a lounge room. The front door opened to a small hallway that the rooms stemmed from, with the lounge room at the end of the hall.
10:12 Speaker 00 The back door in the lounge room opened to a small veranda and a second set of external stairs. These led down to the concrete backyard which housed the rubbish bins and other facilities. The home's decor was bland, with bare white walls, white floors and cheap furnishings.
10:33 Speaker 00 When the police reached the top of the stairs, they found the front door closed but unlocked. The body of twenty-six-year-old Tony Tan Po Chuan lay slumped against it in a pool of blood. The officers had to push him aside to gain access. Only once they were inside did the true horror become clear. Tony's head had been so severely bashed that parts of his brain were visible. He had also been stabbed multiple times in the neck, presumably with the black-handled kitchen knife lying under his right leg.
11:13 Speaker 00 One of the wounds was so deep that it had punctured his voice box. Blood was smeared all over the wall and across the doorframe. The police followed a trail of blood down the hallway towards the lounge room and found Tony's prescription eyeglasses smashed to pieces, along with several of his shattered teeth. Blood spatter, smears, and bloody footprints marked the lounge room floor, couch, and coffee table. The lounge room was sparsely furnished with nothing more than a beige couch, a canvas deck chair, a coffee table, and a small television sitting on a flat pack stand.
11:54 Speaker 00 Behind the couch, a makeshift desk sat low to the ground with a computer and other equipment on top, the back door to its left. As police approached, they could see that the couch and deck chair were splattered with blood and appeared to have been pushed slightly out of place. Behind the couch, twenty-six-year-old Te Chuan Leung lay in a pool of blood.
12:21 Speaker 00 Like Tony, he had sustained numerous blows to the head, as well as multiple stab wounds to the neck. On the other side of the room, the TV blared at high volume.
12:36 Speaker 00 Ram Tiwary was taken to the police station where he voluntarily gave two detectives a more detailed statement in an electronically-recorded interview.
12:47 Speaker 00 Ram couldn't think of anyone who would possibly want to hurt Tony or Chow Lyang. Both of them were dedicated electrical engineering students who spent the majority of their time focusing on their studies, living relatively quiet lives in Australia.
13:04 Speaker 00 Like Ram, Tony was completing his degree thanks to a scholarship from the Singaporean Armed Forces. He'd taken his education seriously, as he'd hoped to secure a good military career that could help him provide for his parents. Having already fulfilled his national service and completed a diploma in architectural technology, Tony hoped to rise to the rank of major by the time he was 30.
13:34 Speaker 00 Chow Lyang's university tuition was paid by his parents, who worked as food vendors back in Singapore. He was a computer whiz who happily spent his spare time online or at home watching movies. While Tony had gone out with Ram on a few occasions, Chow Lyang's English was limited, and he associated almost exclusively with other Singaporean or Asian students. Neither had any known enemies, nor were they involved with the drugs, criminal activity, or any shady characters.
14:10 Speaker 00 Ram explained to the detectives that the previous evening of Sunday, September 14, had been uneventful. After working a security shift in the day, he'd returned home at around 6pm and watched the fantasy adventure film Lord of the Rings with Tony and Chow Lyang.
14:30 Speaker 00 The trio had made a few passing comments about the film, but nothing of note was discussed. Ram was exhausted, having worked all weekend. He was the first to go to bed at around 9:30pm, at which point, everything was normal.
14:48 Speaker 00 Ram woke up at around 6:30 AM on Monday to a phone call from his girlfriend Elvira. They spoke for about half an hour, during which they arranged to meet at uni at 2:00 PM that afternoon. Ram got up, ate breakfast and had a shower, but then went back to sleep. He didn't know what time it was when he'd first woken up to the TV blaring and the sound of something falling, but the noise had been so innocuous that he hadn't even considered getting up to see what it was. It was only when he'd woken for the second time at around 2:10 PM
15:29 Speaker 00 that he heard the banging sound and screams in the hallway and realised something was horribly wrong. He repeated the same story he'd given the emergency services operator and the first responding sergeant about how he'd discovered his flatmate's bodies.
15:48 Speaker 00 Ram told the detectives that on his way out to meet the paramedics, he went up to Tony and touched his neck to feel for a pulse. He then put his hand to Tony's nose to see if he was breathing. He noticed that Tony was frothing at the mouth.
16:07 Speaker 00 "The blood was falling out of Tony's nose, and air too", Ram recalled.
16:16 Speaker 00 Back at Barker Street, Ram took detectives on a walk-through of the crime scene to explain exactly what he'd seen when he emerged from his bedroom. He added that when he checked Tony, a spurt of blood had come out of his mouth and he'd "sort of spasmed".
16:35 Speaker 00 While the black-handled kitchen knife was a generic model that could have come from anywhere, Ram explained that the baseball bat found next to Tony's body actually belonged to him. He'd purchased it just two days earlier from a sports store in the city, but hadn't had a chance to use it yet.
16:55 Speaker 00 Despite a thorough examination of the property, investigators found no clues as to who the killer or killers might be. There was no sign of forced entry, nor was there any blood or other evidence outside the property to indicate where the perpetrator had fled to.
17:14 Speaker 00 Five sets of fingerprints were found throughout the home that couldn't be attributed to one of the tenants or their known guests. These prints were put through the police database but didn't match anyone in the system. The baseball bat and a knife were forensically examined, but no usable prints were found.
17:36 Speaker 00 Albert Leisha was the landlord who lived on the ground floor of the Barker Street duplex. He told police that he and his wife had been in and out of the property throughout the day. They kept the side gates locked until they returned at around 1:45pm. Albert said he'd sat down to eat his lunch at 1:50pm but didn't hear any of the commotion taking place upstairs. The only person he saw run past the back window was Ram Tiwary on his way to greet the first responders.
18:14 Speaker 00 The next step for investigators was to look into Chow Lyang and Tony's movements on the day of the crime. The pair had been close friends ever since Tony moved into the Barker Street apartment several months prior. Because they were both completing the same degree, they were known to be more or less inseparable around the university. On Mondays, they were both scheduled to attend a midday lecture on mobile and satellite communication systems. The two typically woke up at around 8am, prepared for the day, and then studied for a couple of hours before walking to the lecture hall together.
18:56 Speaker 00 The campus was only about a five-minute walk from their home, and they always made the journey on foot.
19:04 Speaker 00 A forensic examination of Tony's computer, which was in his bedroom, revealed he'd spent Monday morning at home working on his thesis. He sent two emails to his supervisor, the first at ten forty-two AM and the second at eleven oh six AM, before manually shutting the computer down at twelve oh two PM.
19:28 Speaker 00 As fastidious students, Tony and Charlie Young both valued punctuality and were always on time for classes. However, several classmates told the police that on Monday, September fifteen, Tony showed up for the twelve PM lecture around fifteen minutes late, and alone. His usually neat, gelled hair was messy and disheveled. Some classmates noticed that he seemed distracted, restless, and tired. When one of them asked Tony why he was late, he smiled vaguely, but said nothing. He didn't seem to be paying attention to the lecture,
20:11 Speaker 00 instead turning his head and looking around as though keeping an eye out for someone. Unusually, Charlie Young didn't show up at all.
20:23 Speaker 00 Tony and Charlie Young had arranged to meet with a classmate named Kevin after the lecture to organise an ethics seminar they'd been working on together.
20:34 Speaker 00 But during the lecture, Tony lent over to Kevin and told him they had to cancel the meeting. He gave no explanation as to why, simply saying that Charlie Young had something he needed to do.
20:50 Speaker 00 The lecture finished a little early, at around one fifty PM. Afterwards, Tony chatted to some classmates, and they noticed he appeared uneasy. He was shaking from side to side.
21:05 Speaker 00 One friend asked what was going on, and Tony responded that he urgently needed to go to the toilet. Other classmates noted that Tony seemed tired, but otherwise normal. He told one of them that he was going home to sleep.
21:23 Speaker 00 Tony then left the lecture hall and began walking up the outdoor staircase that led off campus towards the corner of Oval Lane and Willa Street. This was a well-used pathway for students coming and going from the university and was the usual route Tony walked home. Just before 2pm, he passed a friend named Jonathan who asked, "How's it going?" Instead of responding with his typical friendly smile and a warm reply, Tony grunted, "It's going good", before continuing on his way. Jonathan watched as Tony made his way towards a vehicle parked near the top of the steps
22:08 Speaker 00 on Willa Street. Jonathan remembered it because the car was facing the wrong way in the one-way street and was also parked in front of a no-stopping sign. He could see two or three other people inside the car, all of them Asian, none of whom he recognised. Jonathan was with his friend Shaun, who saw the car and its occupants too. Shaun remembered Tony taking his backpack off and approaching the car's open door. Tony got into the car, which Jonathan noted as odd because he knew Tony lived in close walking distance to the campus.
22:48 Speaker 00 He then watched as the car drove away with Tony inside. Police could find no explanation as to why Chow Lyang hadn't attended uni that day. At the time he was killed, he'd been wearing trousers and a jumper with his wallet in his back pocket. Those who knew Chow Lyang said that was how he dressed when he left the house. If he was hanging around at home, he just wore shorts and a t-shirt. The fact that he was dressed suggested that he was either preparing to leave the house or perhaps expecting company.
23:30 Speaker 00 Charlie Young's computer was last used at 11:58 AM. The blood spatter and positioning of his body behind the couch indicated that he'd been sitting at the low computer table at around this time, when someone came up and unexpectedly hit his head from behind with a blunt object. The tip of his left index finger was crushed to the point of almost being amputated, suggesting that he'd put his hand up to his head after the first blow, at which point he was struck again.
24:04 Speaker 00 The force of these two blows was extreme enough to fracture Charlie Young's skull and cause brain damage. Further examination of his brain revealed a substance called amyloid precursor protein. More commonly known as beta APP, this substance only forms when at least two hours have passed between a brain injury being inflicted and the individual's time of death. The presence of beta APP indicated that Charlie Young hadn't died instantly, but had survived for at least two hours after he was first struck in the head.
24:43 Speaker 00 This was a significant finding for several reasons. First, the last confirmed sighting of Tony was at 2 PM, and Ram's call to emergency services was placed at 2:20 PM. This meant that Tony was attacked during that short window of time, while Charlie Young was attacked around midday. It also explained why the five stab wounds in Charlie Young's neck hadn't bled much, and why no blood was found in his lungs. Investigators believed that these stab wounds hadn't been inflicted at the same time as the blows to Charlie Young's head, but hours later, when he was either on the brink of death or post-mortem.
25:31 Speaker 00 Based on the forensic evidence, investigators believed that Tony returned home through the front door. If he'd entered via the back door, he would have instantly come across Chow Lee Young's body lying behind the couch. Yet, when police first arrived at the crime scene, they'd found a pot of chicken wings cooking on the stove, indicating that Tony had started preparing his lunch without suspecting anything was amiss. He'd also taken his shoes off and put his wallet in his bedroom.
26:05 Speaker 00 From the kitchen, Tony likely made his way to the lounge room, where the attacker hit him head-on, smashing his glasses to pieces. At least two blows were administered with such force that Tony's nose was fractured, all eight of his front teeth were knocked out, and his jaw was broken.
26:26 Speaker 00 Blood smears, footprints, and displaced furniture indicated that he'd then fallen to the ground, but managed to get up and run down the hallway in an attempt to escape. There, the offender struck Tony in the head several more times, causing at least 12 lacerations and massive skull fractures. Bruises on Tony's arms indicated he'd tried to defend himself, but the ferocity of the attack had rendered him powerless. While his head injuries were severe enough to ensure death, five stab wounds were also found on the right side of Tony's neck, inflicted one below the other in a brisk, frenzied attack.
27:11 Speaker 00 The evidence at the crime scene was disturbing and perplexing. If Chow Lee Young was first attacked at midday, then it meant he lay dying for two hours, while the offender either lay in wait or left and then returned to kill Tony shortly after 2pm. At that point, the offender might have detected a sign of life in Chow Lee Young and stabbed him in the neck to ensure he was dead.
27:40 Speaker 00 Yet, strangely enough, while the baseball bat and knife found next to Tony's body showed traces of Tony's blood and DNA, there wasn't a single spot of Chow Lee Young's blood or DNA found on either weapon.
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32:24 Speaker 00 The evidence at the Barker Street crime scene left investigators with more questions than answers, the most obvious being: “Why would anyone want these young men dead?” By all accounts, Tay Charlie Young and Tony Tan Po Chuan were quiet, polite, and intelligent students who kept a low profile while focusing on their education. They were dutiful sons who valued their families, with Tony’s mother saying that Tony would always help others, including his friends. Both men lived off modest allowances, and nothing was missing to indicate robbery as a motive. A friend of Tony’s told the police:
33:08 Speaker 00 “I can’t think of any reason why anyone would want to hurt Tony. I do not believe that Tony had any friends who I would not trust.”
33:19 Speaker 00 Police considered whether the attacks could have been racially motivated. There had been a recent wave of kidnappings and extortion attempts against Asian students in New South Wales, the most recent having occurred just weeks prior. A 19-year-old Vietnamese student was strangled to death after a botched kidnapping attempt, while a Chinese student had been kidnapped and assaulted while the perpetrators demanded a $120,000 ransom from her parents in Beijing. But investigators found no evidence to support such a motive, and it was quickly ruled out, leaving them to comb through the man’s personal lives in an attempt to discover what, if any, secrets they’d been hiding.
34:06 Speaker 00 It was common for young Singaporean men to marry before moving overseas to complete their tertiary education. Tony had met his girlfriend in an online chatroom in 1998, and the two wed in Singapore just a few months before his murder. She had visited Sydney and stayed with Tony at Barker Street. When questioned by police, she couldn’t think of anyone who would wish Tony harm. A forensic examination of Tony’s computer didn’t reveal evidence of infidelity, criminal activity, or anything to suggest that he felt he was in danger.
34:45 Speaker 00 However, the search of Tay Charlie Young's computer was a different story.
34:52 Speaker 00 Charlie Young was married to a woman named Winnie, who was also back in Singapore. The two met in high school and married in a registry wedding, but they'd been planning a proper wedding celebration after Charlie Young completed his degree and moved back home.
35:09 Speaker 00 Tony's wife told police that when she was visiting Barker Street, she'd noticed that Charlie Young didn't wear his wedding ring. He only put it on when Winnie came to visit.
35:23 Speaker 00 Charlie Young's online activity revealed that he'd spent the last few months before his death in almost daily contact with another woman in Singapore named Jasmine.
35:35 Speaker 00 While it was mostly just day-to-day chit-chat, their online conversations were often flirtatious and occasionally sexual. Charlie Young made it clear that he was attracted to Jasmine and had romantic feelings for her, even though she was engaged to be married. Police wondered if jealousy could have played a role in the double homicide. They conducted searches with immigration, but these only proved that neither Jasmine nor her boyfriend were in Australia at the time of the murders.
36:09 Speaker 00 With no obvious suspects or motives, police turned their focus to the mysterious car on Willa Street that Tony's uni mates Jonathan and Shaun had seen him enter mere minutes before he was killed.
36:24 Speaker 00 Tony accepting a ride home instead of walking was so out of character that police were convinced it was significant. Either the people in the car had something to do with the murders, or they might have witnessed something crucial that could hold the key to solving the case.
36:42 Speaker 00 Unfortunately, Willis Street wasn't covered by the university's CCTV cameras, and the descriptions of the vehicle varied. Jonathan described it as a white four-door sedan, possibly a Toyota Echo, while Shaun said it was dark in colour. Police spent hours driving the two young men around the area to see if they could spot a similar-looking car, but it was a fruitless endeavour.
37:10 Speaker 00 As for the occupants of the vehicle, all Jonathan or Shaun could say was that they appeared to be Asian.
37:18 Speaker 00 A man who lived near the victims told the police that he saw a pale-coloured car parked in a laneway near Barker Street sometime after 1pm on the day in question. At around 2:25pm, a university student was driving down Barker Street looking for a park when he saw an olive-skinned man who was, quote, "not Indian or Caucasian", looking around as he made his way towards a small white sedan parked next door to the murder scene.
37:51 Speaker 00 The man, who appeared to be in his early 30s, got into the car and it drove away. Another woman described seeing a similar car driving erratically about 2km from Barker Street at around 2:30pm. She estimated that the vehicle was going 100km/h in a 50 zone. It almost hit another car, as well as a telegraph pole. The woman told the police, "It wasn't just joyriders, the speed scared me. I had never witnessed this sort of behaviour on the road before."
38:30 Speaker 00 As weeks passed with no breakthroughs in the case, the police made a public appeal for the driver of the car to come forward. They said the man had picked Tony up less than 30 minutes before his body was found, and that he could be the vital link in solving the murders. The car was described as light blue or white, and resembling a Toyota Echo. Anyone who had seen a similar vehicle around Barker Street was encouraged to contact the police.
39:03 Speaker 00 No one came forward prompting police to issue an international press release. But still, the car and its occupants remained a mystery.
39:17 Speaker 00 Weeks turned into months with the unsolved case receiving little attention from the Australian media. By May 2004, eight months had passed and the killer was still yet to be apprehended. On Thursday, May 27, surviving housemate Ram Tiwary contacted the police to let them know he intended to return to Singapore. He told them that his studies hadn't been going well and there were commitments he needed to fulfil back at home. Ram hadn't booked his flight yet, but he wanted to check if the police needed anything further from him before he left.
39:58 Speaker 00 The detectives working the case asked Ram to visit the police station the following morning for one final interview. Ram agreed. When he showed up the next day as planned, the detectives read him his rights and then sat him down for a second recorded interview. What Ram didn't realise was that he wasn't being interviewed as a witness, but as a suspect.
40:27 Speaker 00 For some time detectives had been dubious of Ram's claims that he'd slept through the attacks committed right outside his bedroom. While they'd initially been willing to accept this, this changed after forensic evidence indicated two hours passed between the two attacks. Detectives didn't think it made sense for an outsider to enter the apartment, plunge in Charlie Young, then leave, only to return hours later to launch the second attack on Tony.
40:58 Speaker 00 Ram was six feet tall and a trained commando, described by friends as a bit macho. Why then would he barricade himself in his room, knowing that his friend was outside screaming for help?
41:13 Speaker 00 The fact that there was no sign of forced entry or robbery also raised suspicion, suggesting that the crimes might have been committed by someone who either lived there or was welcomed inside. Given how bloody the scene was, it stood to reason that whoever carried out the attacks would have also been covered in blood. Yet, a forensic examination revealed no blood on any of the home’s external structures, such as the back door, rear stairs, the garden, or surrounding fences.
41:46 Speaker 00 Detectives believed this was because the offender washed up before leaving. An inspection of the kitchen and bathroom hadn’t revealed any obvious evidence of a clean-up, but further testing revealed a strong positive for blood in the bathroom sink, as well as a weak positive on the hot water tap.
42:06 Speaker 00 When police and paramedics had first arrived at Barker Street, Ram Tiwary's hands were smeared with blood. He explained this was because he’d picked up the murder weapons to defend himself in case the offender was still in the house, and that he’d checked Tony’s pulse as well.
42:25 Speaker 00 But when Ram was taken to the police station for questioning, a detective who specialised in crime scene examinations also noted spots of blood on Ram’s feet and ankles. Testing proved that the blood had come from Tony Tanpo Chuan.
42:43 Speaker 00 In Ram’s walk-through of the crime scene, he provided a new detail that could explain this. He said that when he’d gone to check Tony’s pulse, Tony had coughed and blood spurted from his mouth. The investigators found this incredibly suspicious. For starters, this was the first time Ram had mentioned such an event. He’d said nothing of it during his first interview with police. Secondly, Ram was on the phone to emergency services for 10 minutes and 20 seconds before he claimed to have exited his bedroom and checked on his friends. Yet, the attack on Tony had been ferocious, and he’d likely died within minutes, making
43:28 Speaker 00 it highly unlikely that he would have coughed up blood 10 minutes later.
43:34 Speaker 00 The blood spots on Ram's feet and ankles ranged from 1 to 3 mm in diameter, and looked to one forensic detective like medium-velocity blood spatter. In other words, it looked like the result of an impact, not an expiration.
43:53 Speaker 00 The detectives had also noticed some small discrepancies in Ram's version of events. When Ram first called emergency services to report the murders, he told the operator that his two friends were dead, that both had been completely bashed in, and that there was blood all over the place.
44:13 Speaker 00 However, during his first recorded interview at the police station, Ram told the detectives that he didn't see Chow Lyang's body until he was on the phone with the operator, and went out to assess the situation. After seeing Tony's body and realising the back door was open, Ram told the detectives that he grabbed both the knife and the baseball bat from next to Tony. He then went to close the door and, quote, "That's when I saw Chow Lyang. He was lying behind the couch and was covered in... covered in blood too."
44:53 Speaker 00 The detectives assumed that Ram was unaware that his phone call to emergency services was being recorded. He therefore told the operator the truth, that both of his flatmates were dead, but then made up what he believed would be a more favourable version of events when speaking to the police.
45:14 Speaker 00 It wasn't just the forensic evidence and inconsistencies that had roused detectives' suspicions. Shortly after the murders, Ram moved out of Barker Street and into another student sharehouse. When his new flatmates asked him what he'd witnessed, Ram said he wasn't even home when Tony and Chow Lyang were killed. He said he'd simply returned home to find his flatmate's dead. Another friend told the police that Ram hadn't even told his own family about the murders, even though they were very close.
45:54 Speaker 00 With several details in Ram's account not adding up, this left the question of motive. Tay Cha Liang and Ram Tiwari had lived at the Barker Street apartment since July 2002, and Tony Tan Po Chuan since March 2003.
46:13 Speaker 00 Police spoke to multiple witnesses who knew the three housemates, and they all said the same thing. There was no overt animosity between any of them.
46:24 Speaker 00 While there had been some small domestic disagreements about the cooking and washing up, the trio had sorted this out by deciding to cook their meals separately. They bought all their own food and labelled it appropriately.
46:39 Speaker 00 This hadn't created any ongoing tension or friction, and they continued to cohabitate peacefully.
46:47 Speaker 00 The landlords who lived downstairs also said they'd never seen or heard their upstairs tenants fighting or arguing.
46:56 Speaker 00 It cost the students $2,172 per month to rent the apartment. Every month, like clockwork, Cha Liang paid the entire amount, and his flatmates then reimbursed him for their respective shares.
47:13 Speaker 00 He also took care of the bills and expenses, which were divided among the housemates. When police searched the property, they'd come across an undated post-it note in Ram's bedroom written by Cha Liang. It had Ram's name on it, along with an itemised list of money he apparently owed to Cha Liang. It started with an outstanding debt of $1,148, followed by rent for March and Ram's share of bills and food. A second note found in Ram's bedroom was also confirmed to have been written by Cha Liang. It was another itemised list of apparent debts that Ram had incurred,
47:57 Speaker 00 including what appeared to be a previously outstanding amount of $4,445, along with rent and bills for August. It came to a total of $5,054.
48:13 Speaker 00 The note also listed money owed to Chow Lyang by someone called Andrew. According to the itemized account, Andrew owed $500 in bond, rent for the months of July and August, and more than $1,500 in undisclosed incidental expenses, which included a $4 charge for toilet paper.
48:37 Speaker 00 However, no one by the name of Andrew had ever lived at the property.
48:43 Speaker 00 A fourth tenant, a Taiwanese student named Vincent, had resided there during 2002, but he'd moved out around the same time that Tony moved in. Vincent told the police that he'd returned to the house for a brief stay in July 2003, and that during his visit, Ram mentioned that a friend of his was supposed to be moving into the spare room. While Vincent couldn't remember who exactly gave him this information, he recalled that the new tenant was named Andrew, and that he was an Australian from the New South Wales city of Bathurst. Emails sent from Chow Lyang to Ram and Tony in July 2003
49:28 Speaker 00 also made mention of one of Ram's friends moving in.
49:34 Speaker 00 When asked about Andrew during a phone call from the police, Ram said he didn't know anyone by that name, and there were no plans for a fourth tenant to move in. He said he'd met someone at uni who mentioned they wouldn't mind moving into the Barker Street apartment, but they'd changed their mind, and Ram never mentioned it to Tony or Chow Lyang. No one close to Ram had ever heard him mention a friend named Andrew.
50:04 Speaker 00 Despite their best efforts, investigators found no evidence to suggest who the elusive Andrew was. A forensic accountant examined Ram's Australian bank accounts and concluded that he hadn't reimbursed Charlie Young his share of the rent or household expenses since March 2003, six months before the murders. Furthermore, on September 10, he received his wage from the security company he worked for, giving him a little over $700. After making some other payments, Ram didn't have enough left over to cover the rent due on September 13, let alone reimburse the money he already owed.
50:50 Speaker 00 Investigators obtained Ram's university records and discovered that his struggles weren't solely financial. As part of his military scholarship, Ram was required to maintain good grades. If he failed to do so, he had to pay the tuition money back. Any debt would ultimately be the responsibility of his brother and cousin as they had signed as guarantors on Ram's scholarship. Records showed that in the second semester of 2001, Ram failed three out of the five subjects he was enrolled in. He then lied about his results to the military to ensure they'd continue financing his scholarship.
51:33 Speaker 00 Things didn't improve in 2002. He failed most of his subjects, leaving him with no choice but to retake the courses before he could submit his grades to the military. In mid-August 2003, one month before his housemates were killed, Ram received an invoice from the University of New South Wales demanding immediate payment of outstanding fees, some of which were almost a year overdue. In total, Ram owed the university a little over $7,000.
52:09 Speaker 00 Both Tony and Charlie Young had been set to graduate at the end of 2003, at which point they intended to return to Singapore. The plan was that Ram would take over the lease, as well as the responsibility of paying rent to the landlords. With the money Ram already owed Charlie Young in rent and expenses, along with the overdue fees due to the university, investigators believed it stood to reason that Ram was under a considerable amount of financial pressure. Additionally, he knew that Tony was returning to Singapore to pursue a military career, which might have contributed to a growing anxiety that his poor academic results would be revealed.
52:54 Speaker 00 Police believed that desperate times had led to desperate measures, prompting Ram to invent the fictitious character of Andrew to ease his financial pressure by reducing the amount of rent he owed each month. While this might have momentarily relieved some pressure, the receipt of his overdue university fees finally pushed him over the edge.
53:20 Speaker 00 Based on all the information they'd gathered, investigators suspected that Charlie Young had decided to skip his lecture on Monday, September 15, so he could confront Ram about the unpaid rent and organise his taking over the lease. As they spoke, Ram started to panic about the mess he'd made. The two began to argue, at which point Ram lashed out, grabbed the baseball bat he'd purchased with this very confrontation in mind, and used it to bash Charlie Young over the head.
53:55 Speaker 00 Thinking Charlie Young was dead, Ram then washed himself and the baseball bat clean and waited two hours for Tony to return home from his lecture. Ram killed Tony to cover up what he'd done to Charlie Young and to ensure Tony couldn't tell the authorities about the ongoing financial dispute between the two. Perhaps detecting a sign of life in Charlie Young, Ram then stabbed him in the neck to make sure he was definitely dead.
54:26 Speaker 00 He quickly cleaned himself up before calling emergency services and concocting the false story about sleeping through the attacks. Only when realising that there was blood spatter on his feet and ankles, did he try to explain its presence by making up the story about Tony coughing up blood.
54:46 Speaker 00 Eight months after the double homicide, as Ram Tiwary sat down for his second recorded police interview, he declined an offer to speak to a lawyer.
54:57 Speaker 00 The detectives put it to Ram that he was the one who killed Charlie Young and Tony. He flatly denied all of the allegations, to no avail. Ram was placed under arrest and charged with two counts of murder.
55:14 Speaker 00 Seemingly in disbelief, Ram asked: “But what about the people in the car?” The detectives did not respond.
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58:34 Speaker 00 Ram Tawari was denied bail after being deemed a flight risk and placed in custody awaiting trial. Upon hearing that he'd been charged with the brutal slayings of Tay Chau Leung and Tony Tan Po Chuan, those who knew Ram were left in utter disbelief. The allegations simply didn't align with the person they knew. By all accounts, Ram came from a good home and was part of a loving and supportive family. His father was a recently retired vice-principal who had only ever known his son to behave responsibly and respectfully.
59:13 Speaker 00 Ram had been an outstanding high-school student who had gone on to dutifully perform his national service in Singapore, rising to the rank of lieutenant. After he moved to Sydney in July 2000, Ram's outgoing and extroverted personality ensured he had no trouble making new friends. He was something of a social butterfly who loved an audience and telling a good story. Friendly and generous with his money, Ram was always the first to shout a round of drinks on a night out.
59:47 Speaker 00 While Ram could be passionate and sometimes got into arguments at the uni-bar, none of his friends knew him to be violent. If anything, they viewed him as a peacemaker. Ram was the kind of friend who would step in and take care of his mates if one of them had too much to drink, going out of his way to make sure they got home safely. Ram's girlfriend, El Vera, described him as a calm person who doesn't lose his head over things. She said: "He's the type of person who would rather walk away from a situation than let it escalate."
1:00:24 Speaker 00 For those who knew Ram well, there was nothing unusual about his claims that he'd slept through the attacks. In addition to enjoying a night out, Ram was in the habit of studying late into the night, then sleeping throughout the day. It wasn't unusual for him to get up to attend a morning lecture before going straight back to bed. On the morning of the murders, El Vera and Ram had made plans to meet at uni at 2pm. When he didn't show up, El Vera wasn't surprised. She sent him a text message at 2:10pm that read: "I guess you're still sleeping. Bye."
1:01:05 Speaker 00 El Vera was one of only two people Ram had completely confided in about what he'd seen on September 15, 2003. The other was a close friend Ram had stayed with after the Barker Street property was cordoned off as a crime scene. According to Ram, his decision not to tell anyone else had nothing to do with an inconsistent narrative, but was a shame-based response. During his second interview with the detectives, Ram straight up admitted that he'd lied to several people about not being at the house on the day of the murders. "I heard something happening that day, and what I did was, I shut my door and didn't do anything," he explained.
1:01:51 Speaker 00 "I feel so bad about that fact. I hate going and telling people who know me. Yeah, I was in the house, but I didn't do anything."
1:02:02 Speaker 00 As for his decision not to tell his parents that his housemates were killed, Ram reasoned that he'd been living out of home for six years and had been self-sufficient during that time. "I didn't want to worry my parents," he told the detectives. "That's the way it's always been. If I think I can ride something out without worrying them, that's exactly what I'll do."
1:02:29 Speaker 00 Ram was incredulous at the suggestion he could have killed Chow Lyang over a financial dispute. First and foremost, Ram claimed he didn't even owe Chow Lyang any money. The reason his bank account didn't show any payments to Chow Lyang was because he and Tony paid their rent in cash. Even Chow Lyang's wife had told the police that she'd seen Chow Lyang carrying around a stack of cash when she visited Barker Street, which she then took to deposit at the bank. The detectives presented Ram with the post-it note found in his bedroom detailing that Ram owed Chow Lyang $1,148 for an unspecified debt, followed by rent and expenses for March.
1:03:15 Speaker 00 Ram had a simple explanation for this. He told detectives that the $1,148 equated to two months of rent and expenses. This was for the months of January and February 2003, when Ram had been in Singapore for the summer holidays.
1:03:35 Speaker 00 He said he'd paid his rent for December before leaving, and Chow Lyang presented him with the post-it note upon his return in late February. He had paid that money in March. As for the second note found in Ram's bedroom, which the detectives said was evidence that Ram owed Chow Lyang a total of $5,054, Ram pointed out that the word "owe" wasn't written anywhere on the note. He explained this was because the note was actually a list of cash payments he had made to Chow Lyang, not money that was outstanding.
1:04:15 Speaker 00 Ram argued that some budget statements found on Chow Lyang's computer supported this. The spreadsheets were made up of two columns titled "inflow" and "expenses". In one of the inflow columns, Chow Lyang had written "Ram till July", along with an amount of $4,445. The detectives believed this was evidence that as of July 2003, Ram was $4,445 behind in his rental payments. But, according to Ram, inflow related to money that Chow Lyang had already received.
1:04:57 Speaker 00 As proof, he reasoned that another item in the inflow column was called cash, and incoming cash wasn't something that could be owed.
1:05:08 Speaker 00 Furthermore, on the day of the murders, Charlie Young had pinned a note to the front door that read: "Bros, if Vincent comes to get his stuff, collect sixty-three dollars from him for electricity. Thanks."
1:05:24 Speaker 00 The sixty-three dollars that Vincent owed Charlie Young wasn't listed in any of the inflow columns of his budget statements, which Ram claimed supported the notion that inflow didn't relate to money Charlie Young was owed.
1:05:41 Speaker 00 Ram also pointed out that if he hadn't paid his rent or expenses since early 2003, surely that would have put Charlie Young under considerable financial stress. Yet, he hadn't complained to anyone about Ram owing him money. In fact, an online message found on Charlie Young's computer suggested the opposite. In June 2003, three months before the murders, Charlie Young had sent a gift to a friend in Singapore. When the friend messaged to say thank you, Charlie Young responded: "Ram paying my rent for this month, so I got extra couple of hundreds."
1:06:24 Speaker 00 For Ram, the notion that he could have killed his flatmates over five thousand dollars was absurd. Even if Ram did owe Charlie Young money, it was a solvable issue. Although Ram's parents weren't wealthy, they were reasonably well off, and Ram's father had given him ready access to a Singaporean bank account with adequate funds. If he'd found himself in financial strife, he would have access to that account.
1:06:55 Speaker 00 The fact that Ram owed the University of New South Wales over $7,000 was admittedly a source of stress for him, but he'd been honest with the police about it. In fact, when he called the detectives the day before his arrest to let them know his intention to return to Singapore, he'd told them all about his uni issues. Without prompting, he admitted that he'd failed several subjects and was therefore blocked from re-enrolling in his course the coming semester. As he and his family would be liable to reimburse the military for funds already paid, Ram told the police he felt he had no choice but to return home and face the music.
1:07:41 Speaker 00 As Ram waited for his day in court, he hired a defence attorney who began looking into the forensic side of things. While the prosecution claimed Ram had lied about being in his bedroom when the attacks took place, forensic testing of Ram's bedroom after the murders revealed dust marks on the floor that supported his story about dragging his cabinet in front of the door to barricade himself in. Crime scene photos also showed a small cabinet by the door. While prosecutors believed the phone call Ram placed to emergency services was staged, the defence had a very different interpretation.
1:08:23 Speaker 00 When the operator asked if it was safe for Ram to go outside to check on his housemates, he adamantly replied: "I'm not going back outside till somebody gets here. I'm not fucking going back outside. You want to break down the door, fucking go ahead. I'm not fucking going back outside."
1:08:46 Speaker 00 When the operator told him help was on the way, Ram asked:
1:08:52 Speaker 00 "Are you going to hang up, or are you going to stay on?" The operator asked if Ram wanted them to stay on the line. He responded: "Could you please, till somebody gets here, please?"
1:09:07 Speaker 00 Not only did the defence believe that the recording indicated Ram was in a genuine state of distress when he placed the call, it also proved that he was in his bedroom. When paramedics arrived at Barker Street, Ram told the operator that he was going to go outside. At this point, the audio captured the increasing sound of the television, indicating that Ram was walking from his room and towards the living room, just as he later described in his police interview.
1:09:42 Speaker 00 Then, there was the matter of blood. Despite the large amount of blood throughout the crime scene, very little was found on Ram. Other than the blood on his hands, which he'd readily shown to the first officer on the scene, there were just a few spots of Tony's blood on Ram's clothes, ankles and feet. Not a single spot of Charlie Young's blood or DNA was found on him anywhere.
1:10:09 Speaker 00 As Ram's defence lawyer pointed out to Channel News Asia's current affairs programme, Get Real: "If someone's been struck with an item like a baseball bat, and that bat gets blood on it, then when that bat's been swung back, you get cast-off blood. And that would include blood going on to the back of the person who's holding the bat." There was blood on the walls and all around, but not on Ram's back.
1:10:39 Speaker 00 Investigators reasoned the lack of blood on Ram was because he had washed himself before calling the authorities. Yet, when a crime scene investigator tested the Barker Street bathroom for blood, all they'd found was a strong positive in the bathroom sink and a weak positive on the hot water tap. However, the test was inconclusive, as it was also designed to react to other organic matter and certain metals. A positive test could just as easily be reacting to rust as to blood.
1:11:14 Speaker 00 The U-band pipe in the sink was removed and analysed for blood, but none was found. Nor was there any evidence to suggest that bleach or any other cleaning agents had been used.
1:11:28 Speaker 00 Moreover, when police arrived at the crime scene, the shower recess and laundry sink were both completely dry, and there were no wet towels anywhere in the house to suggest someone had recently washed themselves. Investigators were convinced that the same baseball bat had been used to kill both Tony and Charlie Young, even though not a single trace of Charlie Young's blood or DNA was found on it. Yet, the handle of the baseball bat was covered in fabric, and this too was dry. If Ram had washed all traces of Charlie Young's blood from the bat after using it to kill him, then it stood to reason that the fabric would have been wet.
1:12:14 Speaker 00 The brand-new baseball bat was still shrink-wrapped at the time of the murders. Pieces of the plastic shrink wrap were found in Tony's wounds, but nowhere on Charlie Young.
1:12:27 Speaker 00 Ram's defence team reasoned this wasn't because it had been washed between the attacks, but because two separate weapons were used. The reason none of Charlie Young's blood was on Ram was because he'd had nothing to do with the murder.
1:12:45 Speaker 00 During the investigation, some of Tony's friends had told the police that Tony mentioned wanting to buy a baseball bat for protection. He didn't mention what he wanted protection from, nor did he seem scared. It was more of an "off-the-cuff" remark. A friend of Ram's thought he recalled seeing a baseball bat in the Barker Street living room in July 2003, two months before Ram purchased the one used to kill Tony. However, no other bats were found during a search of the property.
1:13:20 Speaker 00 Although the timing was unfortunate, Ram's defence didn't think there was anything suspicious about Ram buying the bat two days before the murders. After all, it was Ram himself who'd told the police the bat belonged to him. He still had the receipt, and the transaction was on his bank statement. If this was a premeditated attack, as investigators insisted, then it didn't make sense for Ram to admit that the bat was his, or that he'd keep such an obvious paper trail. The evidence indicated Tony hadn't arrived home until 2:05pm and had been attacked anywhere between then and 2:10pm.
1:14:04 Speaker 00 Ram had called emergency services at 2:20. If Ram had committed the crimes, why would he have called for help so quickly when there was no pressure for him to do so? Why give himself mere minutes to clean the crime scene, leaving just a small amount of Tony's blood on his feet, when he had plenty of time available to ensure a thorough clean-up? And why clean the baseball bat after the attack on Chow Le Young, but not after the attack on Tony? When Ram Tiwary's trial began in June 2006, almost three years after the murders, the
1:14:47 Speaker 00 major focus was the blood evidence. The prosecution argued that the reason none of Chow Le Young's blood was on Ram was because he'd washed before murdering Tony. The defence pointed out there was no evidence to indicate a clean-up had occurred, and the only reason the very small amount of Tony's blood was on Ram was because he had coughed while Ram was checking on him.
1:15:13 Speaker 00 The prosecution called two expert witnesses who attested to the impossibility of this scenario. One testified that Tony's head injuries would have immediately sent him into such a deep state of unconsciousness that his cough reflex wouldn't have been functional. The other, a forensic pathologist, agreed with this finding. However, upon cross-examination, he said that the cough reflex is lost gradually and conceded that there was a remote possibility that Tony was not so deeply unconscious that he'd lost the ability to cough.
1:15:50 Speaker 00 A neurologist named Dr Mark Hirsch gave evidence for the defence that the cough reflex was one of the last things to go in severely injured patients. Dr Hirsch explained that if damage was only done to the upper part of the brain, as in Tony's case, then the cough reflex could still be activated. Dr Hirsch was of the opinion that Tony not only could have coughed, as Ram claimed, but that he would have.
1:16:21 Speaker 00 A neurosurgeon, Dr John Matheson, agreed. He explained that head injuries are progressive in nature. Death can be slow, occurring after brainstem function stops and cardiac arrest occurs. Blood found in Tony's lungs indicated that his airway would have been irritated, which, Dr Matheson said, would have caused an inevitable coughing reflex. He had witnessed this himself in another patient.
1:16:53 Speaker 00 Given the position Tony's body was in, Dr Matheson believed that any coughed-up blood probably hadn't come from Tony's mouth, but through the knife wounds in his neck.
1:17:06 Speaker 00 It was significant that the prosecution declined to cross-examine Dr. Matheson. As a result of the expert testimony, the judge instructed the jury that the prosecution's witnesses had not provided proper evidence to convict Ram Tiwary. He stated: "The state of the medical evidence at the end of the day is that not only could Tony have coughed, but that he did."
1:17:36 Speaker 00 Ram chose not to take the stand. The prosecution attacked his credibility based on what they claimed were the various lies he'd told during the course of the investigation. There was his story about being asleep while the attacks took place, the varying claims he'd told to friends about his presence at the crime scene, his denial that he owed any rent money to Charlie Young, and the creation of the fictitious Andrew. Given all these lies, the prosecution asked the jury: "Why would you believe anything else?" he said.
1:18:17 Speaker 00 After hearing all the evidence and closing arguments, it took the jury five days of deliberation before reaching their verdict. For the murders of Tay Charlie Young and Tony Tan Po Chuan, they found Ram Tiwary guilty on all counts.
1:18:36 Speaker 00 Some in court noted that the judge seemed genuinely surprised by this verdict. Nonetheless, he ordered that Ram be removed from the courtroom and taken back to prison. Ram's parents and brother, who had flown over from Singapore to attend the trial, watched on in shock and dismay as the bailiff led him away. At Ram’s sentencing five months later, the judge stated that the prosecution had not established adequate evidence to prove a motive. He said: “The offender himself appears to have been a person of good character. Nothing has been produced to suggest that he was prone to any form of violence.
1:19:20 Speaker 00 All the indications are that he and his two flatmates got on well together.
1:19:26 Speaker 00 At the same time, it is obvious that only the most powerful motive could have provoked the offender into committing two such extraordinarily violent murders. I am sceptical, however, that a dispute over the payment of rent could have been sufficient to trigger the extremely violent attacks undertaken by the offender. But this does not seem to me to matter very much, since, if the attack on Mr. Tay was provoked by a demand for rent, it could not be regarded as in the slightest degree mitigating.”
1:20:00 Speaker 00 The judge found no evidence that Ram was suffering any form of psychiatric or mental health issues at the time he committed the crimes. He believed the emotion Ram showed during the call to emergency services was genuine, stating:
1:20:17 Speaker 00 “The significance of this finding is that, although there was a substantial element of premeditation, at least so far as Mr. Tan’s murder was concerned, these acts of extreme violence were not committed with indifference to the gravity and dreadfulness of what Ram Tiwary was doing. I do not doubt that the offender was emotionally affected by, and was fully aware how heinous were the terrible acts that, nevertheless, he deliberately committed.”
1:20:49 Speaker 00 While the judge acknowledged that Ram’s conviction had been a nightmare for his family, he added: “At the same time, I should also acknowledge the dreadful sense of loss that has been suffered by the families of the two murdered victims, who lost their lives when they were still young, who had been successful at their studies, and who had futures full of promise. Their families will continue to suffer from this terrible loss without remission, except for such slight relief as time might afford.”
1:21:23 Speaker 00 There is no evidence of remorse or contrition. As I do not know what led the offender to commit these murders, I am unable to make any finding about the likelihood of rehabilitation, one way or another.
1:21:39 Speaker 00 The judge concluded that Tony Tan Po Chuan's was the more serious of the two murders, not because it was intrinsically more heinous, but because it was done to remove a potentially incriminating witness from the scene, and thus, there was no doubt that it was premeditated. Taking these factors into account, the judge sentenced Ram Tiwary to 25 years imprisonment for the murder of Charlie Young, and to life for the murder of Tony.
1:22:11 Speaker 00 Ram's lawyers appealed his conviction and sentence, arguing the verdicts were unreasonable and lacked evidentiary support. They highlighted the case's many unanswered questions, including Tony's odd behaviour on Monday, September 15, 2003, his apparent knowledge that Charlie Young would be absent from university that day, and why he unexpectedly accepted a ride from strangers just before his murder. If Ram was guilty, they questioned why he hadn't concealed key evidence, such as notes on rent and the baseball bat purchase. It took the panel of appellate judges two months to return with their decision,
1:22:55 Speaker 00 which was handed down in December 2008, five years after the double homicide. In addition to agreeing that the verdicts were unreasonable and unsupported by the evidence, the appellate judges acknowledged that the inconsistent stories Ram told about what had happened on the day of the crimes did not make him a liar. On the contrary, their judgement stated: "The trauma of the events may have been sufficient to cause an innocent person in his position to be confused about their precise movements and recollection."
1:23:31 Speaker 00 The statement also pointed out that if Ram's story was fake, he would be more likely to remember the details. Their report stated that his version of events were “so different, you might have thought if he was going to fabricate, that he would have got it right, especially if he is, as the Crown says, as cunning as the Crown submits he is.” The Court of Appeal quashed Ram Tiwary's sentences, with the judges finding that the trial had miscarried. However, they stopped short of acquitting Ram entirely, and instead ordered a retrial.
1:24:13 Speaker 00 By the time the retrial commenced in August 2009, Ram Tiwary was 30 years old and had spent just over five years in prison. Although he hired a new defence team and once again exercised his right to remain silent, the evidence presented by both sides was essentially the same as during the first trial. The judge reminded the jury that the prosecution did not have to prove the motive, and again, the jury reached the same verdict: guilty on both counts of murder. However, this time the judge sentenced Ram to 25 years imprisonment for the murder
1:24:54 Speaker 00 of Tay Chuan Leung, and only 40 years for the murder of Tony Tan Po Chuan. This meant Ram would be eligible for parole in 2042, aged in his early 60s. For the next two and a half years, Ram continued to maintain his innocence. Again, he appealed his conviction on the grounds that the jury had reached its verdict based on unfounded evidence. In mid-2012, he was granted a second appeal hearing in the Court of Criminal Appeal, which went ahead in July 2012.
1:25:35 Speaker 00 This time, to explain the lack of blood on Ram or any of his clothing, the prosecution proposed a new theory.
1:25:43 Speaker 00 They claimed that Ram had committed the attacks naked and then washed himself clean before calling for help. After a second day of questioning, the appellate judges requested time to discuss among themselves. While the first appeal bench had taken two months to reach their decision, the second took just two days. The Court of Criminal Appeal found that there was considerable suspicion when it came to Ram's version of events. Although the prosecution's case was plausible, the judges called several aspects into consideration, in particular, the lack of forensic evidence linking Ram to the crimes.
1:26:28 Speaker 00 They accepted that the small amount of blood on Ram could have come from Tony coughing as he lay dying. In regards to the suggestion that Ram had committed the crimes naked, the judges stated: "If the bathroom had been used by the appellant to wash himself, he would have had to carefully dry the bathroom surfaces and himself. This would have required clothing or a towel which would have been wet. No such wet clothes or towel were placed into evidence."
1:27:02 Speaker 00 Furthermore, if Ram had just bludgeoned and stabbed Tony in a frenzied attack, the judges stated that the cleanup would have had to be very carefully handled.
1:27:14 Speaker 00 "Sloppy or careless work will see him undone. The killing was in all likelihood done sometime after 2:05pm, possibly after 2:10pm. By 2:20 or 2:21pm, Ram has called emergency services. Not only is this barely enough time to undertake the task of dispatching Mr. Tan, washing and drying himself and washing and drying the bathroom, but it raises the question why he would place himself under such time pressure."
1:27:49 Speaker 00 The judges also found that Ram's voice showed genuine fear during the call, and that at times, it verged on hysteria. While they acknowledged that emotions could be faked, they concluded:
1:28:05 Speaker 00 “This would not appear to be the action of someone who has methodically planned and affected the execution of both Mr. Tay and Tan.”
1:28:15 Speaker 00 Furthermore, they found that the inconsistencies in Ram's version of events could be explained by the trauma he'd experienced in having witnessed the battered corpses of his friends.
1:28:27 Speaker 00 The judges sided with Ram in asserting that many of the case's more puzzling aspects remained inadequately explained by the prosecution. They found it reasonable to believe that the murders could have been committed by whoever picked Tony up from university that day. If the driver of the car had simply dropped Tony off at home, the judges questioned why they had not come forward to clear their names, despite police appeals for information. However, they also thought it was possible that Ram Tiwary knew who that person or their passengers were, and that he might have more knowledge of what happened.
1:29:10 Speaker 00 Some of his behaviour could have potentially been explained by fear of consequences to himself, while it was also possible that Ram had some complicity in the killings. Regardless, the possible involvement of others, combined with the lack of forensic evidence connecting Ram to the murders, was enough to raise reasonable doubt in their minds. With that, the judges overturned Ram's conviction and declared that a third trial would not be necessary. After eight years in prison, Ram Tiwary was a free man.
1:29:53 Speaker 00 Ram's period of incarceration had not been easy. Not only was he separated from his family in a foreign country and struggling to understand a legal system he had no prior knowledge of, the unhygienic conditions of prison life led Ram to develop obsessive-compulsive disorder. While Ram had always understood and agreed that the circumstances of what happened on September 15, 2003 were suspicious, he'd spent years grappling to understand how he could have been convicted for a double murder when so many elements of the case did not add up.
1:30:31 Speaker 00 As Ram later wrote in his book titled “99 Months: The Case of the Sydney Double Murders”, he wondered whether racism could have played a role. According to Ram, before his trial, a fellow inmate who had been behind bars for a long time told him: “If you are brown-skinned and you are charged with a violent crime, you will be convicted. If you are yellow-skinned and charged with a drug crime, you will be convicted. If you are Aboriginal, look it, and are charged with any crime, you will be convicted. If you fall outside those groups, only then does reasonable doubt come into play with the jury.”
1:31:18 Speaker 00 After his conviction was quashed, Ram returned to Singapore. He spent some time travelling before returning to normal life, eager to fly under the radar as much as possible. His years behind bars taught him to be grateful for every small joy in life, such as walking into a store, enjoying a leisurely walk, or simply leaning out of an open window. In his book, Ram wrote that while he tries not to be bitter about what happened to him, the question of why he was convicted continues to haunt him.
1:31:55 Speaker 00 After years of research and discussions with various groups of people, Ram concluded that it all came down to human nature on the part of the police and the jury. He wrote:
1:32:08 Speaker 00 “When tragedy strikes, we need someone to blame. Most of us have an inherent belief that the system works, that when the police charge someone and a prosecutor asserts in court that the defendant is guilty, they must be, because... why would the police lie? I know this because up till the day of my arrest, I thought exactly the same way. I discovered the hard way that this is not how the legal system works. It is just easier to console with a conviction.”
1:32:43 Speaker 00 The two detectives overseeing the investigation into Charlie Young and Tony’s murders were demoted in the wake of Ram’s first trial. While Ram is grateful for what his experience taught him, he claims there is one thing he will never find peace with: his decision to barricade himself inside his bedroom on the day of the murders, instead of going outside to help. Ram wrote: “My reaction, which I profoundly regret and am so deeply ashamed of, which I cannot fully explain to myself, much less to anyone else, which will haunt me every living day.”
1:33:27 Speaker 00 The news of Ram’s acquittal came as a huge shock to the family of Tony Tan Po Chuan, who were steadfast in their belief that Ram was guilty and acted alone. Tony’s sister told the Get Real program: “How can he be acquitted? Does that mean that my brother died for nothing? What right did Ram have to appeal? It’s like you’re digging into the wounds of the victims’ families, forcing them to remember what happened.”
1:33:59 Speaker 00 Tony's death and Ram's subsequent acquittal deeply impacted Tony's family, who yearned for justice to be served. Seeking spiritual guidance, Tony's mother visited a medium who advised her not to cry for Tony, as it would make him sad.
1:34:17 Speaker 00 Standing at Tony's graveside, his mother lovingly stroked a photo of her son, telling, "Get real. Look at him, so beautiful, so handsome. It hurts us to think about how the bat came down on him. He died a horrible death. He was beaten to death. It cuts my heart.
1:34:41 Speaker 00 Each time I come, I cry. But I can't cry. He said I mustn't cry. We'll leave it to heaven. Heaven's watching."
1:34:54 Speaker 00 While Tony's family has been vocal about the case, Charlie Youngs have maintained a low profile. They haven't spoken publicly about the crime and didn't provide victim impact statements to the court.
1:35:09 Speaker 00 The driver and passengers of the white car Tony was seen getting into on the day of the murders have never been identified, and no one has been held accountable for the two deaths. The bodies of Charlie Young and Tony were returned to Singapore. Their time in Australia marked only by the degrees they were posthumously granted by the University of New South Wales.
1:35:35 Speaker 00 As investigative journalist Malcolm Knox explained in his SBS article, "A Violent Act", "If justice was not delivered to anyone, it was in part because of a failure of connection." The lives of the three men in that flat were not known deeply enough or sufficiently embedded in an Australian city for the crime to be solved. The search for the killer or killers remains incomplete. Just as so many Asian students pass through Australian cities like ghosts, their money taken and their degrees given, so will these three.
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