Singapore government says US scientist death was suicide

Lawyers for the Singapore government told a coroner’s inquest on Monday that an American scientist found hanged in the city-state last year killed himself and was not murdered as his family claims.

Summing up state agencies’ findings on the death of electronics engineer Shane Todd in June last year, they said “it is clear from the medical forensic evidence that the medical cause of Shane’s death was asphyxia due to hanging.”

The coroner’s verdict, which cannot be appealed, is scheduled to be handed down on July 8. Public hearings on the case were held from May 13-27.

Todd’s family stormed out of the hearings on May 21, saying they had “lost faith” in the proceedings and describing it as one-sided. They later said they may have the body exhumed in California for further tests.

The Singapore government lawyers cited suicide notes left by Todd on his laptop computer, a psychiatrist’s testimony that he suffered from depression, and a browsing history showing he accessed suicide websites before his death.

“The conspicuous absence of any evidence to support the next-of-kin’s homicide theory must be viewed in juxtaposition with the overwhelming evidence pointing inexorably towards suicide,” said a summary read in court by senior state counsel Tai Wei Shyong.