Murder suspect walks free

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HAVE FAITH: Ting (left) consoles Tiffany’s parents at the court house.

MIRI: The High Court here yesterday discharged and acquitted the sole suspect in the murder of Tiffany Wong, a bright student whose death shocked people here last year.

Judge Stephen Chung Hian Guan barred the press from covering the proceedings as the accused is a minor.

It was learned that the accused was acquitted because the prosecutors failed to establish a prima facie case against him.

Apparently the DNA samples and other evidence submitted by the prosecution did not satisfy the judge that the case could proceed any further and he had to acquit the accused.

After the hearing the prosecutors hurried off the scene without giving reporters camped outside the courtroom any chance to ask them what transpired during the trial.

The victim’s family was devastated by the verdict and could not hold back their anger and disappointment when met by the press outside the courtroom.

Political secretary to Minister of Energy, Green Technology and Water, Datuk Sebastian Ting, a lawyer by training, went to court to see the anguished family members and advised them that there was still a legal avenue to appeal against the decision.

“This is not about revenge. This is about justice and the answer to who killed my daughter,” the distraught father told Ting outside the court.

Tiffany, an ex-student of St Joseph Secondary School here, was reported missing from her home, a day after the SPM results were announced.

On that day, Tiffany’s mum had seen her getting into the car of the suspect, who was her childhood friend, supposedly to go to their school to get her SPM results.

She was later found lying dead in a drain at Kampung Beraya Lama, 23km from the city centre.

Tiffany who was 17 years old then had been strangled and her face covered in a black plastic bag.

Her childhood friend, the suspect, surrendered to police at the Central Police Station here on the day of the discovery.

Her murder shocked the whole city. Many netizens, appalled by the heinous crime, called for the death penalty for the 17-year-old boy (the suspect) although her Christian parents later said they forgave him.

Many believed that Tiffany came home, as a bird, to bid farewell to her family during her funeral. It landed on one of the many floral wreaths and remained there the whole day, and when Tiffany’s mother went over to talk to the bird, it hopped onto her hand and chirped.