Death of Megan Khung
Megan Khung | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | Megan Khung Yu Wai 4 October 2015[1] |
| Died | 21 February 2020 (aged 4) Lim Ah Woo Road, Paya Lebar, Singapore |
| Cause of death | Murdered |
| Nationality | Singaporean |
| Known for | Possible murder victim |
| Parent(s) | Simon Khung (father), Foo Li Ping (mother) |
Megan Khung Yu Wai (Chinese: 江雨惠; pinyin: Jiāng Yǔhuì; 4 October 2015 – 21 February 2020) was a four-year-old Singaporean girl who was killed by her mother Foo Li Ping (Chinese: 符丽萍; pinyin: Fǔ Lìpíng; alias Chloe Foo) and Foo's boyfriend Wong Shi Xiang (Chinese: 王世祥; pinyin: Wáng Shìxiáng) in February 2020. Three months after her death, Khung's body was burned and disposed of by the couple, who enlisted the help of a third accomplice Nouvelle Chua Ruo Shi (Chinese: 蔡偌诗; pinyin: Cài Ruòshī) to assist them in disposing of the corpse.
However, Khung's death went unnoticed until five months later, when authorities first got wind of her death upon the submission of a missing person's report by the little girl's grandmother on 20 July 2020. The police managed to arrest all three suspects within less than a week, and on 25 July 2020, both Foo and Wong were charged with murder, while Chua was indicted for disposal of the girl's corpse.
In 2025, Both Wong and Foo pleaded guilty to charges in relation to the manslaughter and abuse of Khung. Chua is currently pending trial for helping to dispose of Khung's corpse.
Background
[edit]Birth and early life
[edit]Megan Khung Yu Wai, the first and only child of her parents Simon Khung (Chinese: 江伟南; pinyin: Jiāng Wěinán) and Foo Li Ping, was born in Singapore on 4 October 2015. Khung's father, who had an older brother, had gone to prison thrice from 2015 to 2019 for drug consumption. When Khung was about eighteen or nineteen months old, her parents, who were married on 12 May 2015, divorced more than a year after they were married. Before his marriage to Foo, Khung's father was formerly married with another woman and had one son (born in 2012) before it ended with a divorce in 2012.[2]
After her parents' divorce, Khung's mother, who gained custody of the girl, began a relationship with Wong Shi Xiang, and went to live with him. Khung was cared for by her maternal grandmother, who doted on her granddaughter and shared a close relationship with her. Subsequently, Foo wanted to bring her daughter to live together with her and Wong. Khung's grandmother, who strongly disapproved of her daughter's relationship with Wong, objected to Foo bringing her granddaughter away, and Khung herself also did not want to stay with her mother.[3] Still, Foo went ahead with the arrangement, and left with her daughter in September 2019. Afterwards, Foo cut off all contact with her mother, ex-husband and former-in-laws. The girl's father and paternal relatives had requested that they take care of the girl but had their requests rejected by Foo, who insisted on raising Khung herself.[4]
Abuse
[edit]Between February 2019 and February 2020, Khung was subjected to physical abuse by both Foo and Wong.[5]
Between late February and early March 2019, Khung was caned by her mother and Wong whenever she urinated on the bed and sofa. The abuse came to light when pre-school teachers and staff from Khung's kindergarten discovered the scars on the girl. The staff later warned the couple that they would refer the case to the Ministry of Social and Family Development if the abuse persisted. Khung was subsequently withdrawn out of her kindergarten by her mother.[5]
After Khung went to live with her mother and Wong, she continued to suffer physical abuse from the couple. Regularly, Wong would use a cane to whip Khung and even slapped and punched the girl, and Foo herself often did not step in to stop the abuse, and she even joined Wong in caning the girl. Wong also went as far as to teach Foo to abuse her daughter without leaving visible marks or injuries.[5]
On 9 November 2019, Foo forced her daughter to wear her soiled diaper over her head out of anger that Khung failed to tell her that her diaper was full. On 5 January 2020, Khung dripped her mucus on the couple while crying, and in retaliation, Foo slapped Khung, blew her own nose and wiped her mucus onto her daughter's face. Other instances of abuse an humiliation include the couple recording and parading the girl crying in public and shaving her hair.[5]
Between January and February 2020, the abuse escalated further with Wong inflicting crueller harm on Khung. He often used a baton to beat Khung frequently and also dislocated her jaw, with Foo refusing to seek medical attention for Khung. During that same period, Khung was also forced to go naked inside the flat, and was frequently starved except for times when she was allowed to eat depending on Wong's mood, and the couple forced Khung to sleep in a planter box.[5]
Khung's death and disappearance
[edit]On 21 February 2020, Megan Khung was abused and murdered by Wong Shi Xiang, who scolded her to not relieve herself if he let her sleep inside the house and even punched her in the stomach. Khung was laid on the ground and later died after the couple and their friend Nouvelle Chua Ruo Shi ignored the girl and went to consume drugs. A forensic pathologist opined that the possible cause of Khung's death was blood infection from inflammation, caused by ruptures or lacerations of Megan’s internal organs.[6] After seeing the girl remaining motionless hours later, the couple and Chua tried to resuscitate the girl with electric shocks and CPR but failed to revive her, and to avoid the exposure of the abuse and their drug use, the trio decided to not report to the police. The body of Khung was hidden in a box, with her body being wrapped in a blanket and layers of cling film, and brown tape, and the box lid was sealed with cement.[5]
On 8 May 2020, the couple and Chua gathered up a metal barrel and two boxes of charcoal. They took it to the car workshop of Wong's godfather and used them to burn the box containing Khung's corpse. They gathered up the ashes and threw them in the sea at East Coast Park.[5]
On 20 July 2020, after months of not seeing her granddaughter, Megan Khung's grandmother, who sensed that something was wrong, made a missing persons report to the police. Earlier on, Khung's grandmother received a letter about her daughter's hospitalization from 29 June to 3 July 2020, in addition to an ominous dream about her grandchild, and these signs made her suspicious about Khung's disappearance. Khung's paternal uncle and other family members of her father's side were also beginning to suspect something was wrong.[7] Khung's father also filed a police report.[5]
Four days later, after the police established that the girl was no longer alive, Foo Li Ping and her boyfriend Wong Shi Xiang were both arrested and expected to be charged with murder, while Chua herself was arrested for helping to dispose of the body.[8][9][10]
Criminal charges
[edit]On 25 July 2020, five days after their arrests, 33-year-old Wong Shi Xiang and 24-year-old Foo Li Ping were both charged with murder in relation to the death of four-year-old Megan Khung Yu Wai. Under the Penal Code, offenders convicted of murder would face the death penalty. The third suspect, 30-year-old Nouvelle Chua Ruo Shi, was charged with assisting the couple to dispose of the little girl's corpse. The charge of disposing of a corpse to prevent detection of an offence carried a sentence of up to seven years' imprisonment. Additionally, Wong also faced seven other unrelated charges, including drug consumption, drug possession, methamphetamine trafficking in November 2018, and possessing two “Samurai” swords. He was also charged with assaulting a man in November 2018 by hitting and kicking him several times.[11][12]
On 30 July 2020, Wong, Foo and Chua were all ordered to be remanded for investigations,[13][14][15] as well as to undergo pre-trial psychiatric evaluation. Foo's family members engaged lawyers to represent Foo, and in the end, out of two defence counsels engaged by her family, Foo chose one of them, consisting of Josephus Tan and his associates Cory Wong and Marshall Lim, while the other, led by Peter Keith Fernando, was discharged. Wong engaged Vinit Chhabra to defend him.[16] On 3 August 2020, the remand order was extended for one week. Chua's lawyer Thangavelu objected to the further remand of his client on the grounds that her charge was not murder, but of disposal of a corpse, which do not warrant the death penalty like murder, and stating that Chua's case would be heard at the State Courts rather than the High Court, where trials for capital cases like murder were conducted. However, the objection was overruled by the district judge, who went ahead with the extension on the account that the prosecution needed more time to gather evidence to determine the roles played by each of the trio in Khung's death.[17][18]
After the end of her prolonged remand order, Chua was eventually granted bail of S$50,000 on 13 August 2020, and thus released from prison with conditions to abide to, like curfew hours and wearing an electronic tag. Foo and Wong were still remanded in prison as murder suspects were not allowed to be released on bail.[19] In September 2020, the psychiatric assessments of Wong and Foo were completed, but they remained in remand pending further investigations and trial.[20][21]
Trial
[edit]Wong Shi Xiang and Foo Li Ping
[edit]On 28 February 2025, 38-year-old Wong Shi Xiang and 29-year-old Foo Li Ping claimed trial for the killing of Megan Khung. By then, the charges of murder were reduced and the couple pleaded guilty to lesser charges. Wong pleaded guilty to four charges, mainly one each of culpable homicide not amounting to murder (manslaughter), impeding investigations by disposing of a corpse, drug trafficking and drug consumption. Foo pleaded guilty to three charges, mainly one each of allowing the death of a child, child abuse and impeding investigations by disposing of a corpse.[22][23]
The sentencing trial of both Wong and Foo was scheduled to begin on 3 April 2025. The prosecution, led by Deputy Public Prosecutor Marcus Foo, sought a sentence of 28 to 30 years' imprisonment with 15 to 17 strokes of the cane for Wong, in addition to a jail term of 15 to 20 years for Foo, citing the heinous nature of the abuse and Foo's breach of her maternal duties by failing to protect her daughter from abuse. On the other hand, the defence sought 20 to 22 years' jail and 11 strokes of the cane for Wong and not more than 22 years' jail for Foo.[5]
Nouvelle Chua
[edit]As of 2025, Chua is currently pending trial for the disposal of Khung's corpse.
Response and impact of case
[edit]When the murder of four-year-old Megan Khung was brought to light, many Singaporeans were shocked and appalled at the case, with many expressing sympathy for the girl while some condemned the couple, especially Foo for her responsibility behind the death of her daughter.[24] Khung's 63-year-old grandmother was devastated at the death of her granddaughter, and struggling with the need to work as a cleaner and take care of her own 82-year-old mother (also Khung's great-grandmother), Foo's mother was also afraid of losing Foo, who was her only child and daughter, but stated her daughter should take responsibility for what she did.[25][26] As for the paternal relatives of Khung's family, Khung's uncle (her father's older brother) expressed his rage and sadness at the plight of his niece, and stated he could not forgive Foo for doing such a terrible thing to her own flesh and blood, and he added that if Foo could not take care of herself, she should not have made the decision to raise Khung by herself.[27][28] Both the maternal and paternal relatives of Khung hoped to conduct a funeral for Khung.[29]
The death of Megan Khung also made an impact on the life of her biological father Simon Khung (aged 36 in 2023). Khung's father, who became addicted to drugs since age 16, stated that after finding out the death of his daughter, although he was heartbroken about the news and felt regret for not fulfilling his duties as a parent, it caused him to finally get himself together and quit taking drugs. Khung's father stated that after his third period of incarceration and release from Changi Prison (where he served all his three sentences) in 2019, he struggled with overcoming his addiction withdrawal symptoms and filled with both self-loathing and depression, and even attempted to commit suicide at one point. The death of his daughter served as a wake-up call for Khung's father to finally quit drugs for good,[30][31] and hence first started to stay at a half-way house. Not only did Khung's father found a stable job, study part-time and rebuilt his life, he partnered with the other former drug users to constantly advocate against drug consumption and spoke up about the dangers of drug use.[32][33] Khung's father was named as the first ambassador of the Singapore Anti-Narcotics Association (SANA) in June 2024.[2]
Khung's father also did not neglect to commemorate his daughter from time to time, and he still missed her even after she died.[34] Since 2023, Khung's father operated a clothing brand and a production company, and also shared his experiences on TikTok under his alias "Simonboy",[35] and he married for the third time in July 2024.[36] Aside from advocating against drug use, Khung's father additionally expressed that he supported the death penalty for drug traffickers, citing that if it was completely abolished, the drug situation in Singapore would grow worse with more young people becoming drug abusers and ruining their lives as he and the other ex-abusers had in the past.[37]
See also
[edit]- Capital punishment in Singapore
- List of major crimes in Singapore
- List of solved missing person cases: post-2000
Other cases of murder with the bodies disposed by burning
[edit]Other cases of murdered children in Singapore
[edit]- Yishun infant murder
- Murder of Nonoi
- Murder of Huang Na
- 2016 Toa Payoh child abuse case
- Murder of Cheng Geok Ha
- Murder of Usharani Ganaison
- Toa Payoh ritual murders
- Murder of Kuah Bee Hong
- Death of Lim Shiow Rong
- Ang Mo Kio family murders
- Chin Swee Road child death
- Murder of Eva Soh
- Murder of Goh Beng Choo
References
[edit]- ^ "撞交警案被捕乘客自揭-4岁女遇害后已改过不碰毒". Sin Chew Daily. 31 October 2021.
- ^ a b "Singapore Anti-Narcotics Association names its first ambassador". The Straits Times. 28 June 2024.
- ^ "4岁女童遭焚尸案 外婆曾极力反对女儿恋情". Oriental Daily (in Chinese). 28 July 2020.
- ^ Wong, Lester (26 July 2020). "Woman charged with murdering her daughter insisted on raising her on her own, says brother-in-law". The Straits Times.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i "Couple abused 4-year-old girl for more than a year, burned her body after she died". The Straits Times. 28 February 2025.
- ^ "Singapore couple burnt corpse of girl, 4, who was starved, abused and fatally punched". South China Morning Post. 28 February 2025.
- ^ "痛失孙女-怕再失女儿-女童外婆曾反对女儿恋情". Johor China Press (in Chinese). 28 July 2020.
- ^ Chua, Nigel (25 July 2020). "2 to be charged with murder of 4-year-old girl in S'pore, including girl's mother". Mothership.
- ^ "Man and woman to be charged with murder of woman's 4-year-old daughter". The Straits Times. 24 July 2020.
- ^ Wong, Shiying; Wong, Cara (25 July 2020). "Man and woman charged with killing woman's 4-year-old daughter and burning her body". The Straits Times.
- ^ Ishak, Syahindah (26 July 2020). "Man, 33, & woman, 24, charged with murder of 4-year-old girl at Paya Lebar condo". Mothership.
- ^ Luo, Miaoting; Chen, Yujia (25 July 2020). "疑杀亲生女后塞桶焚烧 少妇与男友被控谋杀弃尸". Lianhe Zaobao (in Chinese).
- ^ Wang, Yinghui (30 July 2020). "【焚尸案】涉案三人再过堂 女童母与男友对话被制止". Lianhe Zaobao (in Chinese).
- ^ Tang, Louisa (30 July 2020). "Mother accused of killing her 4-year-old child cries in court; has remand extended for further investigations". TODAY.
- ^ Lam, Lydia (30 July 2020). "Mother accused of killing 4-year-old daughter, burning her corpse sobs in court as she is remanded further". CNA.
- ^ Alkhatib, Shaffiq (3 August 2020). "Lawyers engaged to represent trio allegedly linked to 4-year-old's murder". The Straits Times.
- ^ Ang, Matthias (7 August 2020). "Paya Lebar 4-year-old's murder: Defence for woman involved in corpse disposal objects to remand". Mothership.
- ^ Lam, Lydia (3 August 2020). "Mother accused of killing 4-year-old daughter picks her lawyers, defence for co-accused objects to remand". CNA.
- ^ Ishak, Syahindah (13 August 2020). "Murder of 4-year-old at Paya Lebar: Couple remanded another 3 weeks to undergo psychiatric evaluation". Mothership.
- ^ Alkhatib, Shaffiq (3 September 2020). "Further remand for man and woman accused of murdering her 4-year-old daughter and burning her body". The Straits Times.
- ^ Ishak, Syahindah (3 September 2020). "Paya Lebar 4-year-old's murder: Mother cries in court, case adjourns 4 weeks for investigations to complete". Mothership.
- ^ "Mother and boyfriend burnt corpse of 4-year-old girl who was starved, abused and fatally punched". CNA. 28 February 2025.
- ^ "S'pore girl, 4, dies after 13 months of abuse by mum & her boyfriend, who burnt corpse in barrel". Mothership. 1 March 2025.
- ^ "新加坡小女孩惨遭亲妈谋杀焚尸！亲属首发声..." Sohu.com (in Chinese). 29 July 2020.
- ^ Tseng, Wan-yu (28 July 2020). "孙女遇害独生女被捕 又要照顾病母 清洁工处境堪忧". Lianhe Zaobao (in Chinese).
- ^ "狮城焚尸案 女童外婆忧失女儿". eNanyang (in Chinese). 28 July 2020.
- ^ Jiang, Xinru; Wu, Ruiming; Xiang, Huifei; Wu, Yijin (26 July 2020). "【焚尸案】女童大伯怒斥：毁自己就算 为何要带走孩子？". Lianhe Zaobao (in Chinese).
- ^ "女童大伯痛斥:毁自己就算 "为何要带走'培根'？"". eNanyang (in Chinese). 27 July 2020.
- ^ "杀女童铁桶焚尸案 祖母外婆拟为孙女招魂". eNanyang (in Chinese). 29 July 2020.
- ^ Xiang, Huifei; Jiang, Xinru (31 October 2021). "撞交警案被捕乘客称 4岁女遇害后已改过". Lianhe Zaobao (in Chinese).
- ^ Cai, Weiqian (21 January 2023). "爱女遇害后顿悟未尽父责 前嗜毒者决心戒毒 借TikTok宣导远离毒品". Lianhe Zaobao (in Chinese).
- ^ Yee, Jonathan (7 August 2022). "2 S'poreans Break Free From Years Of Drug Addiction, They're Now Business Partners & Bros For Life". Must Share News.
- ^ Koh, Sarah (20 January 2023). "Sana tree-planting day: How former self-professed 'menace to society' finally said 'no' to drugs". The Straits Times.
- ^ "撞交警案被捕乘客自揭-4岁女遇害后已改过不碰毒". Sin Chew Daily. 31 October 2021.
- ^ Lim, Ainslyn (18 October 2023). "'I downloaded all the dating apps': Ex-convict-turned-TikTok star Simonboy on the first thing he did after his 2-year stay at a halfway house". TODAY.
- ^ "新加坡网红Simonboy"77"在中途之家娶妻". Lianhe Zaobao (in Chinese). 7 July 2024.
- ^ Ching, Shi Jie (26 January 2024). "'Singapore's strict for a reason': Former drug abusers share what will happen if the death penalty is abolished". AsiaOne.