Featured image adapted from the Supreme Court via The Straits Times and Google Maps.
In the early hours of 19 Sept 2008, the grisly Yishun triple murder case horrified Singapore. A 42-year-old man brutally murdered three Chinese nationals in an HDB flat, with one plummeting to her death off the building.
The killer recounted a tumultuous love affair of blood love letters, expensive seafood meals, and constant verbal abuse, claiming it led him to snap in a confused daze.
Despite an attempt to argue for diminished responsibility, the testimony of a 15-year-old girl who survived his brutal onslaught would help send him to the gallows instead.
Source: Supreme Court via The Straits Times
In 1996, Wang Zhijian was introduced to Ms Zhang Meng while working as a port storekeeper in Tianjin, China.
According to Wang, the two would meet again three years later. At the time, they were still in China.
In 2005, they went out to a coffee shop, where Wang poured his heart out about his divorce the previous year.
Wang and Ms Zhang began going out on dates once a week, including regular sexual intercourse after 17 March 2006.
In June 2006, Ms Zhang confessed that she was actually married and had a daughter. Wang said he felt saddened and intended to end the relationship, but she convinced him to keep going.
In an attempt to showcase her love, Ms Zhang reportedly pricked her finger with a needle and wrote “I love Wang Zhi…” in her blood, but could not complete the sentence due to pain.
She told him to finish it, so he pricked his finger and wrote “…jian, I want to marry him.”
In further displays, Wang later wrote her a love letter in blood and tattooed her image on his back, complete with a rose.
Source: Supreme Court via The Straits Times
Things took a tumultuous turn when Ms Zhang revealed the affair to her husband, Mr Feng.
The two men agreed to let Ms Zhang choose between them, and she picked Wang.
Wang claimed that Ms Zhang’s family beat him up over the affair, forcing him to temporarily flee Tianjin.
Her family members also caused a ruckus at his workplace, and so Wang retired on medical grounds in April 2007.
Wang characterised his relationship with Ms Zhang as one of extravagant spending.
He reportedly used up 100,000 yuan from his pension in just 3.5 months for Ms Zhang’s expensive meals and branded clothes.
Ms Zhang would break up with Wang for several months to care for her ex-husband after a stroke, but returned to him with her daughter, Feng Jianyu.
Source: Supreme Court
In Dec 2007, Jianyu moved to Singapore after a successful enrolment into Northview Secondary School.
Ms Zhang went with her as a ‘peidu mama’ or ‘study mama’ — a foreign woman who moves to Singapore with their child to support their education.
Wang, meanwhile, stayed in Tianjin.
The couple went through yet another break-up and reconciliation in 2008. Wang claimed that the relationship left him “mentally and physically tired”.
In Singapore, Ms Zhang and Jianyu moved into a sixth-storey corner unit at Block 349 Yishun Avenue 11.
Source: Google Maps
A close friend described Ms Zhang as taking care of her daughter and cooking meals for her every day.
17-year-old Jianyu flourished in her time at Northview Secondary School.
She received As in every subject except a B3 in English for her Secondary 2 mid-year exams, even becoming top of her class.
Jianyu also became the leader of the school’s Chinese dance group. The principal described her as “very mature” and full of potential.
Early in 2008, Ms Zhang sublet a room in her Yishun flat to Ms Yang Jie and her 14-year-old daughter, Li Meilin.
Ms Yang grew up in Shenyang, China, and had her daughter with a Mr Li, whom she divorced.
She later married a Mr Chen Jun in Dalian and had another daughter with him.
In Nov 2007, Ms Yang travelled to Singapore with Meilin and enrolled her into Northland Secondary School in hopes of a better education.
The mother had to sell her house in China to afford the trip.
Meilin struggled with the English subject initially, getting an F9.
To improve her daughter’s English skills, Ms Yang would make Meilin choose a local newspaper article and translate it into Mandarin with the help of a dictionary.
Both of their hard work resulted in her English grades improving to a C5. She excelled in 11 other subjects, including A1 in Chinese and Mathematics.
The two mother-daughter pairs also reportedly got along well.
Things took a turn when Wang visited Ms Zhang in Singapore three times from July to Sept 2008 upon her request.
In his first trip, he claimed that the S$2,800 he brought was spent in a mere four days, mostly on expensive crab and other seafood meals for his lover.
Source: Crimewatch
For his third and final trip on 9 Sept 2008, he withdrew almost all the money he had left, amounting to S$1,400, and headed to Singapore.
Ms Zhang allegedly went through S$400 of it in just five days.
During his stays at their Yishun flat, Wang claimed that he had to stay naked in their bedroom and defecate into plastic bags.
He also alleged having to cook and clean for Ms Zhang and Jianyu.
Jianyu supposedly treated Wang coldly, viewing him as a homewrecker who ruined her parents’ marriage.
On 18 Sept, Ms Zhang reportedly asked for crab again. When he refused, she furiously scolded him with vulgarities and called him poor.
That night, Wang and Ms Zhang went to bed in the same room.
Wang’s detailed personal account claimed that he was in a daze, felt like he couldn’t breathe, and saw red.
Furious thoughts about Ms Zhang flooded his mind for over an hour.
Then, Wang went to the kitchen, grabbed a serrated knife, and started relentlessly stabbing Ms Zhang in the abdomen.
Source: Crimewatch
She screamed and struggled, but he continued his brutal attack until she went motionless.
At this time, Jianyu opened the bedroom door, presumably having heard the commotion.
Wang claimed he did not recognise her before rushing over and stabbing her in the abdomen as well.
The 17-year-old girl collapsed onto the mattress and died.
Source: Crimewatch
In total, he had stabbed and slashed the two of them 93 times.
At some time past midnight, several neighbours in the Yishun HDB block heard sounds of what they thought was a quarrel.
Then came the jolting noise of a loud thud.
One neighbour looked out of her bedroom window and saw a woman in a nightdress lying face down and motionless on the ground floor.
It was Ms Yang, dead.
The police were notified at 12.50am on 19 Sept, and went house-to-house, trying to find where Ms Yang had fallen from.
At 2am, they arrived at Ms Zhang’s unit and found the padlock smeared with blood.
Wang answered the door but refused to let them in.
The authorities subsequently conducted a forced entry and arrested Wang, who did not resist.
Source: Crimewatch
Officers found the bodies of Ms Zhang and Jianyu.
Entering the toilet, they found Meilin, severely injured but alive, and rushed her to the hospital.
Wang received three charges for murder and one for attempted murder.
He flashed a big smile at the reporters outside the courts and at the crime scene.
In statements to the police, Wang recounted that after he killed Jianyu, Ms Yang and her daughter “suddenly” opened their bedroom door.
He claimed that he rushed in and attacked Meilin with the serrated knife, while Ms Yang fled.
The girl managed to get inside the toilet, so Wang broke in and attacked her again with two other knives.
Wang alleged not knowing how Ms Yang ended up on the ground floor below the kitchen window and denied attacking her.
Source: Crimewatch
Li Meilin gave her account of what had happened during the trial on 22 Nov 2011.
She had been awoken that night by a loud sound that seemed to have come from Ms Zhang. Then, she heard Jianyu shouting.
Meilin and Ms Yang discussed whether they should call the police.
Before they came to a decision, Wang barged into their room and slashed the 15-year-old repeatedly.
After he instructed her not to move and left to chase Ms Yang, the wounded girl stumbled over and tried to shut the bedroom door.
Wang returned, pushed her to the bed, and promised not to kill her, but thrust at her again with his weapon.
Terrified, Meilin kicked Wang over and fled to the toilet in a panic.
Her assailant hacked the plastic door open and chopped her on the head, face, and neck until she collapsed.
Wang then left, assuming that he had killed her.
“God, let me die,” Meilin prayed in intense agony from her wounds.
Unfortunately, Wang heard her and returned. He stabbed her repeatedly in the back of her neck, lower back, and her right ear.
She remained in a semi-conscious state until the police found her.
Source: Crimewatch
Meilin suffered severe injuries and had to get her right eyeball removed. Her right ear was hanging on by its skin and needed to be reattached.
One of the many injuries on her face and neck was a slash wound running from the tip of her right eyebrow to her chin.
During her testimony, the judge said it was a miracle that she survived.
In court, it was found that the evidence aligned with Meilin’s account.
Blood smudges from Wang, Ms Zhang, and Jianyu were found on the exterior doorknob of Ms Yang’s room, indicating that Wang was the one who opened the door.
The serrated knife used to kill his first two victims did not have Meilin’s DNA, contradicting Wang’s story.
Source: Supreme Court via The Straits Times
It was determined that after killing Ms Zhang and Jianyu, Wang went to the kitchen and picked up a metal spatula.
He apparently did not think it would be a good weapon and threw it into the washing machine.
Wang then grabbed a chopper and broke into the other bedroom. He also attacked Meilin with a non-serrated knife.
As for Ms Yang’s death, the prosecution stated that she had climbed out of the kitchen window and onto a narrow overhang, holding onto the laundry pole holders.
Wang found her and cut her fingers with the chopper, causing Ms Yang to fall six floors down to her death.
Source: Crimewatch
Ms Yang’s blood was only found splattered on the exterior walls of the block, including on two bamboo pole holders.
Therefore, she was only attacked after she was already outside the window, again contradicting Wang’s claims.
In court, both the prosecution and defence’s psychiatric experts agreed that Wang suffered from an adjustment disorder.
The court also accepted that Ms Zhang treated Wang poorly.
Meilin testified that Wang ate only in the bedroom and walked around with his head lowered, never speaking to her or her mother.
However, the prosecution disputed the defence’s argument that his disorder resulted in diminished responsibility at the time of the killings.
The judge determined that Wang was fully aware and in a clear state of mind when he killed Ms Yang and attacked Meilin.
There was a notable gap in time before he attacked them in which he could have cooled down.
His actions in choosing the right weapon, intentionally cutting Ms Yang’s fingers to make her fall, attempts to make preparations to flee the country, and giving Meilin instructions all pointed to this as well.
Source: Supreme Court via The Straits Times
The judge accepted that he had diminished responsibility when killing Ms Zhang and Jianyu.
On 30 Nov 2012, the judge found him guilty of murder and two counts of culpable homicide, sentencing him to death.
Wang filed an appeal, only for the Court of Appeal to rule that he was guilty of three counts of murder.
They stated that Wang’s extremely brutal attack on Ms Zhang and Jianyu did not match the milder outbursts typical of adjustment disorders.
Wang was executed sometime before Aug 2023, as he was not among the three convicted murderers on death row at the time.
Despite the verdict, the damage to the families of the Yishun triple murder victims had already been done.
“The court outcome won’t matter to [Ms Zhang’s] family. After all, both mother and daughter are dead,” a family friend said at the funeral in 2008.
On 2 Oct 2008, Meilin made the journey to Mandai Crematorium to say her final goodbye to her mother.
The New Paper reported slash wounds crisscrossing her face and neck as she presented a bouquet of white chrysanthemums — her mother’s favourite flowers — and a farewell note.
“She refuses to let me leave her room when she’s awake,” her grandmother, Mdm Zhang Wei (no relation to Ms Zhang), said.
Sometimes, she wakes up suddenly in the middle of the night and tells me that she’s afraid and asks me not to leave her alone.
When Mdm Zhang was presented with a newspaper photo of Wang smiling at the crime scene, she angrily hurled it to the ground.
While her relatives initially wanted to bring her back to China, Meilin decided to stay in Singapore so she could study hard and fulfil her mother’s wishes.
Her classmates and teachers visited her regularly to show her support, which she expressed gratitude for.
Even after losing 15kg in just a month, Meilin kept a positive attitude, joking that it meant she did not need to lose weight the usual way.
Her counsellor, however, said she was putting on a brave front and was still very badly affected by her experiences.
Meilin told the press that whenever she misses her mother, she imagines that Ms Yang is working in a faraway land and writes letters to her.
“I tell myself that’s the reason why she’s not with me now. This is the only way to forget my pain.”
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Featured image adapted from the Supreme Court via The Straits Times and Google Maps.