Man who tortured 19-year-old sister to death in Clementi gets life sentence

After he was sentenced, Huang Bocan spoke to his parents and touched their hands through a slot in the glass panel of the dock. His mother had tears in her eyes after the conversation.

Punishment system

Chee owned a company selling Herbalife products, which she called a club, where members paid to get discounts on products and could also sell the goods to their own clients.

The two siblings and Lim were members of the club, and Chee was their “coach”.

Huang Bocan and the victim left home in July 2020 after falling out with their parents, who refused to continue spending as much as $2,000 a month on the products sold by their children.

The siblings went to live with Lim, and Chee joined them a few weeks later following a dispute with her husband.

Chee introduced a system of fines to “correct” the bad habits of club members who she felt would negatively affect sales, which in turn would affect her commission.

This evolved into a system of physical punishment in which those who made mistakes had to perform exercises such as squats. Chee was the only one who was not punished.

The victim was punished the most because Chee and Huang Bocan thought she lacked discipline and motivation, and performed poorly in product sales.

She was deprived of food, forced out of the flat to fend for herself, chained to a railing beside the toilet bowl, and brutally beaten.

In end-December 2020, Huang Bocan and Chee agreed to “challenge” the victim by restricting her food consumption.

From January 2021, he got her to transfer all her money into his bank account, giving her an allowance of $20 to $30 a week.

She was allowed only one meal a day, ostensibly to teach her about hunger and to be grateful for her food.

Things took a turn for the worse in April to May 2021 when the victim was totally deprived of food for days and was allowed to only drink water. 

The victim was also forced out of the flat on several occasions. Once, Huang Bocan cut her hair before chasing her out, to humiliate her because he knew that she loved her long hair.

From February to May 2021, Chee and Huang Bocan started confining the victim in the toilet.

When the couple realised that she was leaving the toilet to look for food, they chained her to a railing beside the toilet bowl.

The victim was also frequently beaten with a wooden pole used to hang laundry. The number of blows increased to a staggering 240 in a single incident.

In April 2021, the four attended a church service. A church member described the victim as “frail” and “skinny” and said that she walked with a limp.

Salt poured on wound

On the night of May 4, 2021, Chee allegedly wanted to punish the victim for lying about whether she had done her squats.

When the victim remained quiet during the beating, Chee and Huang Bocan saw this as defiance.

The trio tried several ways to get a reaction out of her, including holding her head in a basin of iced water.

Salt was poured on an open wound on her calf, and she was tied up under a tap and drenched with water.

After midnight on May 5, the trio tried to wake her, but to no avail.

When they eventually decided to call for an ambulance, they agreed to lie to the authorities and present a false account to protect Chee.

Huang Bocan also deleted photographs and videos from his phone that showed the victim’s bruises. He had shown these to her to remind her of the consequences of making mistakes.

He also deleted audio recordings of the victim being scolded for her mistakes from his phone.

Paramedics reported the case to the police after they saw bruises on the victim’s body.

Huang Bocan was arrested on the same day, and charged on May 6. Chee and Lim were arrested later and charged on May 12. The trio have been in custody since.

Chee’s case is pending in court.

Speaking to reporters after the hearing, Huang Bocan’s parents said he was a kind person who helped his sister with her studies, and did volunteer work when he was a student.

The couple, who said they are factory workers, declined to give their names.

His mother said in Mandarin: “We were busy working. Bocan had always taken care of his sister. Perhaps we neglected to communicate with them. It’s important to put your children and family first.”