She wanted her estranged husband dead, so she got her lover to sabotage his car
SINGAPORE — Nails in his car tyres. Tampering with the car's anti-lock braking system. These could have resulted in Mr Walter Ting Yong Chin dying in a car accident — or at least, that was his wife’s plan.
In the end, Amanda Yeo Pei Min and Leong Wei Guo, the man with whom she was having an affair, failed in their plot after an eagle-eyed driver spotted Leong acting suspiciously in a multi-storey car park. Leong had just sabotaged Mr Ting’s car for the second time.
On Thursday (Feb 20), the two lovers pleaded guilty to conspiring to cause grievous hurt to Mr Ting, now aged 28, by a rash act. They will be sentenced on March 11 and could be jailed up to a year, fined up to S$2,500, or both.
Yeo, 26, was originally charged with abetment of murder, while Leong, 25, initially faced an attempted murder charge. The charges were later downgraded.
Prosecutors told the court that they are seeking five months’ jail for Yeo and four months for Leong.
The pair have since broken up after Yeo gave birth to their baby girl. She was an administrative assistant at the time, while Leong was working as a delivery assistant.
Yeo and Mr Ting, who have two children together, have also divorced.
UPSET OVER FREQUENT QUARRELS
The court heard that the affair developed as Yeo’s marriage to Mr Ting deteriorated. They tied the knot in 2011 and Mr Ting found out about the affair in June 2017.
She then moved out of Mr Ting’s parents’ flat, where they had been living, and went to stay with her mother in Toa Payoh.
In October 2017, the married couple moved back together into another flat but slept in separate rooms. Their two children remained with Mr Ting’s parents.
The couple continued to quarrel frequently, about the splitting of matrimonial assets and shared custody of their children, for instance, and Mr Ting told Yeo that he wanted to leave her. Yeo became pregnant with Leong’s child at the same time.
Deputy Public Prosecutor Houston Johannus told the court: “Enraged by the acrimonious quarrels, she decided to kill (Mr Ting). She conspired with Leong to sabotage his car so that he would get into an accident and die… By sheer serendipity, their plan was thwarted and the parties arrested before any harm befell him.”
In early January 2018, following another argument, Yeo told her lover to kill her husband, saying that his death would solve all of her problems. Leong agreed to this to make her happy and prove that he was worthy of her love.
Knowing that her husband was frequently on the road as a Grab driver, and that he drove fast, she cooked up a plan with Leong to sabotage Mr Ting’s Honda Odyssey.
She gave Leong photographs of the car and his vehicle registration number, and they agreed that Leong should get a pair of gloves and a mask to hide his identity.
On Jan 6, 2018, Yeo handed Leong some nails and told him to puncture Mr Ting’s car tyres with them. The next day, Leong went to the multi-storey car park near Yeo’s and Mr Ting’s flat and used a pair of pliers to insert one nail each into the front and rear left tyres of the car.
He covered his face with a jacket and sent her a photograph of the damaged tyres.
Court documents did not state if Mr Ting drove his car after this act of sabotage or got into an accident from it.
DID IT 'OUT OF LOVE'
A few days later on Jan 10, 2018, Yeo learned that Mr Ting would be driving to Genting Highlands in Malaysia with his parents and their two children the next day. She told Leong about this, before quarrelling again with Mr Ting over the phone.
Realising that he was at his parents’ flat, Yeo told Leong through a phone text message that she wanted Mr Ting dead. Out of love for her, Leong agreed to tamper with the car again.
She told him to loosen the wheel bolts and cut the brake wires, after watching a video online that showed tyres dislodging and the driver losing control of the vehicle as a result.
In the early hours of Jan 11, armed with a wire cutter and spanner, Leong went over to the car park near Mr Ting’s parents’ home. He found the car there and cut the anti-brake locking system wire with a cutter, after unsuccessfully trying to unscrew the wheel bolts with the spanner.
If Mr Ting had driven with the cut wire, the front wheel could have locked during emergency or hard braking, causing Mr Ting to lose control of the car, court documents stated.
Unknown to Leong, another driver was parking his car there at the time and noticed Leong walking around suspiciously with a jacket draped over his head. The driver then called the police at about 1am.
Police officers arrived at the scene and spoke to Leong, who could not coherently explain what he was doing there at that hour. After they found the spanner and wire cutter in his sling bag, he eventually admitted that he wanted to damage a car there.
Leong took the officers to Mr Ting’s car, and they arrested him upon discovering the damaged wire. Yeo was arrested a few hours later.
