The parents of a US high-tech researcher found hanged last year in Singapore accused local police on Wednesday of failing to preserve evidence and insisted their son was murdered.
The inquest into the death last year of electronics engineer Shane Todd took an emotional turn on its third day after police staged a detailed re-enactment of his apparent suicide using an improvised noose in his own bedroom.
“What we have been discovering is evidence that we cannot rely on. It has been moved, it has not been preserved,” his father Rick Todd, 58, an airline pilot, told reporters.
The session was abruptly halted for the day after the late scientist’s mother Mary Todd, 57, broke down at the end of two hours of testimony by a Singapore forensic scientist who did extensive simulations of the hanging.
The couple are in Singapore to testify at the inquest. They allege their 31-year-old son was murdered because of his work for a Singapore institute with alleged links to a Chinese telecom firm accused of involvement in espionage.
Mary Todd, a Christian pastor, told reporters that Singapore authorities were neglecting evidence the family had gathered to show that there were multiple DNA strains on a towel and strap found around Shane’s neck.