Police assure family of girl raped and killed that case is not closed

The family of seven-year-old Lim Shiow Rong have been reassured that investigations are continuing more than 25 years after her rape and murder.

The girl's mother, Madam Ang Goon Lay, 65, and sister, Ms Lim Jia Hui, 27, were called in to the Criminal Investigation Department yesterday, where an officer from the Special Investigation Section told them the case has been reviewed several times since 1995.

Speaking to the media after the meeting at Madam Ang's coffee shop at Block 75 Toa Payoh Lorong 5, Ms Lim said the officer had photographs of the crime scene, but she told him not to show them to her mother as they could be distressing.

"The way my sister died was really horrible. You can imagine how bad it was for someone to beat up a seven-year-old so badly, what pain she must have experienced.

"If it was one of your children, I don't think you all could have taken it... if it was my own child, I probably couldn't have either ," Ms Lim, who works in a customer service call centre, said at the news conference organised by Crime Library Singapore.

She added that the officer had warned her the photos might be disturbing and to prepare herself to view them.

"I was shocked and afterwards the impact was very profound. I think it will be hard to forget," she said.

Ms Lim said the photos showed how her sister's body was found with her legs stretched out in a drain.

Her face was covered in blood and there were black marks around her neck.

On June 24, 1995, at about 9.30pm, Shiow Rong told her mother she was off to see "papa's friend" and ran off while Madam Ang was busy at the coffee shop, which used to be owned by her husband.

That was the last time she saw her daughter alive.

Shiow Rong's body was found the morning after she went missing, in a semi-sitting position in a drain near Jalan Woodbridge.

Investigations revealed she had been sexually assaulted and strangled.

At the time, Madam Ang's husband, Mr Lim Kim Siong, was just one week into his two-year jail sentence for drug- related offences.

He died in 2016, aged 67, from a burst blood vessel in the stomach.

Yesterday, the family also appealed to other families of unsolved murder cases to not stop seeking justice for their loved ones.

"I hope the families of the victims can step up and do something about it... the police is not giving up and you all don't give up also," Ms Lim said.