The Kallang River body parts murder was a murder and dismemberment case that occurred in Singapore in June 2005. The case earned its name due to the body parts of the victim, 22-year-old Liu Hong Mei (Chinese: 刘红梅; pinyin: Líu Hóngmeí), being found disposed off in Kallang River. In this case, Liu's 50-year-old supervisor, Leong Siew Chor, used a towel to strangle her to death, and severed her body into seven pieces - mainly her head, upper torso, lower torso, legs and feet - before disposing them off in Kallang River and other locations in Singapore. Leong, a married man with three adult children, was revealed to have engaged in an illicit sexual affair with Liu for a year before murdering her on 15 June 2005, as a result of wanting to cover up the affair and theft of Liu's credit cards and money from her bank account. He was arrested three days after the murder, and the police also managed to locate five of her body parts. Liu's severed feet were never found. Leong was eventually found guilty of Liu's murder and condemned to death by the High Court on 19 May 2006. After failing to receive an acquittal of the murder charge and clemency from the Court of Appeal and the President of Singapore respectively, Leong was executed on 30 November 2007. This case became one of the most notorious murder cases to have occurred in Singapore, as well as earning its recognition as one of the famous cases taken by criminal lawyer Subhas Anandan, who represented Leong in his trial and recorded the case in his memoir.
Discovery of body parts at Kallang River On the morning of 16 June 2005, 27-year-old cleaner Murugan Kaniapan chanced upon a waterlogged, brown cardboard box sealed with masking tape lying on the banks of the Kallang River. Murugan went to pick up the parcel to dispose of it but the water damage was too severe. The damage caused the box to fall apart in his hands, and a green plastic bag fell out of the parcel. He discovered the severed lower torso of a woman inside it. The naked body part had been cleanly severed at the pelvis and knee joints. Murugan described that the body part looked like fresh meat, and it was so fresh that it looked as though the woman did not die at all. He said there was no blood and no smell, and the exposed knee bone looked white. Murugan contacted the police, who were told of the discovery. The police combed the nearby areas of Kallang River on a two-kilometre radius for possible signs of other body parts. A short while later, at about 200 m away from where they found the body part, a red-and-white printer box was discovered and inside it, it contained a woman's severed upper torso with arms and hands attached. The body part was wrapped up in plastic bags and some torn pages of old issues of a local Chinese newspaper Lianhe Wanbao. The two body parts were later matched and found to be coming from the same person. The pathologist who conducted an autopsy on Liu, Dr Teo Eng Swee, was unable to determine the cause of death, as there were no defensive injuries found on the victim. The head, shins and feet were also missing from the body, which made it hard to pin down the cause of death. He also verified there was no sexual assault since there were no DNA found in the swabs made on her sexual organs.
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