Cold cases, warm leads? In Singapore, the unsolved murders of Lim Shiow Rong and Felicia Teo have gripped the nation

Interest has been rekindled in the killings of seven-year-old Shiow Rong in 1995 and Teo, 19, in 2007, after a suspect was recently charged for the latter crime

The development in Teo’s case motivated Shiow Rong’s sister Jia Hui to make a public appeal for information, and police are looking into the new tip-offs

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From left: Joseph Tan of Crime Library Singapore, Ang Goon Lay (Lim Shiow Rong’s mother, holding pictures of her) and Lim Jia Hui at a media conference held in front of Ang’s drink stall in Toa Payoh. Credit: Joseph Tan

Published: 10:00am, 24 Jan 2021Updated: 9:46am, 25 Jan 2021

Lim Jia Hui was a year old when her elder sister Lim Shiow Rong went missing in 1995. Then aged seven, Shiow Rong was last seen at a coffee shop on June 24 in the central Singaporean district of Toa Payoh. She had gone off to find her father’s friend while her mother was busy tending to patrons of her drinks stall – and she never returned.

Shiow Rong’s body was found the next morning, in a drain in the island nation’s northeastern region, roughly 7km from where she was last seen.

She is believed to have been raped and suffocated to death by her assailant, according to a report in local broadsheet The Straits Times. The police circulated a description of a possible suspect and launched an investigation, but the case was never solved.

Earlier this month, Jia Hui – now 27, and working in customer service – gave a media interview to appeal to the public for leads in the case. She said she wanted to seek closure for her 65-year-old mother.

Jia Hui had first consulted Crime Library Singapore, where a small team of volunteers use social media to help reunite family members who have lost contact with each other, and seek witnesses in murder or missing-persons cases.