35-year-old unsolved murder: The killing of a beauty queen

Rashitha Abdul Hamid

http://www.theantdaily.com/Hot-Topics/35-year-old-murder-mystery-The-killing-of-a-beauty-queen-Part-1/;Part 2

KUALA LUMPUR: It had all the ingredients of a sensational murder case: a former beauty queen, a love triangle and a fatal stabbing in a parked car. All these came to a head on the night of April 6, 1979, in a secluded underpass off the Federal Highway.

This is the Jean Perera Sinnappa murder, one that probably stands out among all others for its news value, and which would probably have been investigated quite differently by today’s forensics technology. But even today, those who followed the case still wonder whether the accused, S. Karthigesu, who was convicted but was later freed, actually did it.

Interestingly, all Malaysians connected directly to the case have passed on, except for Karthigesu and the investigating officer Datuk Ramli Yusuff. “They are all dead; the judge, members of the jury, the prosecuting officer. Only Karthigesu and I are alive,” Ramli, now 65, tells The Heat in a recent interview.

Ramli rose to the rank of Bukit Aman Commercial Crimes Investigation Department director before he retired. He himself was subjected to a court hearing when he was charged with failure to declare ownership of company shares and interest in two properties. He was however acquitted by the High Court in November 2011.

At the peak of her career, the vivacious and curvaceous Jean won beauty contests in Negri Sembilan and Selangor and was a Miss Malaysia first runner-up. She became a celebrity of sorts and later married chemist Sinnappa Sivapakiam, with whom she had three children. After leaving the beauty pageant scene, Jean became a teacher at Sekolah Sultan Abdul Samad in Petaling Jaya, and according to those who knew her, was a dedicated one.

Her husband tragically died in a road accident near Jalan 222, Petaling Jaya, on New Year’s eve in 1978.

Jean, who was also in the car, was flung out of the vehicle but survived with minor injuries. The night before the accident, her husband had told her to make herself “the most beautiful girl” for a romantic night out.

As fate would have it, four months later, the beautiful 31-year-old widow met her end. She was found stabbed to death in her car, a white Fiat 125, while her brother-in-law S. Karthigesu was found lying on the ground near it, seemingly semi-conscious. Jean, who was clad in a colourful saree, was stabbed 10 times in the chest.

After 35 years, a sensational trial that was covered to its fullest in all newspapers, and after countless theories on the murder, the case remains unsolved, and police never found a single piece of evidence that could positively identify the killer. Even the murder weapon was never discovered despite an intensive search of the crime scene.

The investigators of the most sensational murder case of its time took almost four months to close the investigation papers. Karthigesu, who was arrested on April 26, was charged with Jean’s murder on May 9.

Jean’s murder was documented by the Crime & Investigation Network in collaboration with the National Film Development Board (Finas) in 2012 and the documentary, Jean Perera The Beauty Queen Murder was aired on Astro channel 732 on Dec 20, 2012.

The producers tried to interview Jean’s brother, Brian Perera, and her daughter, who is a lawyer, but understandably both of them declined and expressed they wish to stay away from any publicity pertaining to the tragedy.

The Jean Perera Sinnappa murder was the first case to be tried in a Malaysian court on circumstantial evidence and extra judicial confession. The prosecutors had it made when a witness revealed an incriminating outburst by the accused, and that led to his conviction. But in a bizarre twist, the witness later admitted he lied and was jailed. The Heat spoke to the case’s investigating officer Datuk Ramli Yusuff.

For Ramli, who was then a Senior Investigation Officer, it was “just another routine murder case” if not for the fact that she was a beauty queen.

“I was on 24-hour duty on the day the murder happened. I was at Taman Tun Dr Ismail investigating another case when I received a call from the Petaling Jaya police headquarters informing me about the incident,” Ramli says.

He was told that two staff members of Malaysia Airlines had lodged a report claiming they found a woman dead in a car at a secluded underpass off the Federal Highway, some 5km from the Sultan Abdul Aziz Shah Airport (now known as Skypark Terminal).

“When I arrived at the scene, I was surprised to find a man lying face down but still breathing. He kept murmuring something which I could not understand. I decided to send him to University Hospital (now Universiti Malaya Medical Centre) for treatment.”

The man was later identified as Jean’s brother-in-law and lover, Karthigesu Sivapakiam, a psychology lecturer at the Special Teachers Training Institute in Cheras. It was reported they were planning to tie the knot but during the trial, a priest with the Our Lady of Lourdes Church in Klang, Rev Edward Soosai, said neither Jean nor Kathigesu applied to the church to register their marriage.

After the loss of her husband, Jean and her three children, son Damendra and daughters Rohini and Malini lived with her mother-in-law and Karthigesu. The two were believed to have fallen in love with each other and decided to marry.

According to Ramli, Jean’s murder was one of a kind as it was the first in Malaysian judicial history where a suspect was convicted on circumstantial evidence and extra judicial confession.

Karthigesu, 37, who was the sole suspect in the murder, was sentenced to death by the High Court after a 38 day trial. However, he was sensationally freed when a prosecution witness, Bandhulanda Jayathilake, who was a friend of the family, came forward four days later and admitted he had lied to the court about Karthigesu having said to him that“the bitch did not deserve to live”.

Jayathilake was jailed 10 years for perjury, and died two years into incarceration. As for Karthigesu, he walked out of jail a free man on May 20, 1981 after spending two years, one month and four days in prison.

Ramli explained why the police had zoomed in on Karthigesu. The lecturer, when questioned by the police, claimed he had stopped the car along the road side to ease himself while returning home after having dinner with Jean at Abad Century Hotel in Petaling Jaya.

“He said he was hit from behind while easing himself and he fell to the ground and could not remember what had transpired,” Ramli says.

He says he came suspicious because there were no obvious signs of injuries on Karthigesu and there was no sign or smell of urine at the location where he was said to have eased himself.

Because of those doubts, Ramli detained Karthigesu to assist in the investigation to find out the truth. A few days after the arrest, Ramli said Karthigesu led him and his team to his house in Klang where they carried out a full search for evidence.

Here, Ramli found the first of his circumstantial evidence – a bag full of love letters to Jean, and some written by her but were not posted to the person intended.

“There were almost 20 letters in the bag, mostly written by Dr Narada Warnasurya to Jean. She had met him at a function in YMCA in Brickfields during his visits to Malaysia in September 1978,” Ramli says.

He adds that if Jean had an affair with Narada then, and the intense letters suggested so, it meant she had been unfaithful to her husband who was still alive then.

Karthigesu’s love towards Jean may have turned into hatred when he found one of the letters in Jean’s bag but did not question her on the matter. It was heard in court that he held a grudge and was waiting for the right time to take revenge.

In one of the letters, Narada discussed plans to marry Jean, including converting to Islam so he could have more than one wife. This also probably triggered Karthigesu’s anger and jealousy. Narada, however, refused to come to Malaysia to assist police investigation and the trial.

As the investigation officer of the most high profile case of that time, Ramli said he remembered the content of every one of those letters. “They were very intimate, and it is not proper to publicise them for public consumption.”

Could a love triangle between Jean, Kartigesu and Narada have led to the tragedy? That, at least, was the crux of the prosecution’s case. It was, however, bogged down by lack of supporting evidence to link it to the murder.

Ramli said: “Although police managed to track down his location with the help of Sri Lankan government and police, Narada refused to come down to attend the court hearing which took 38 days.”

Narada himself had a press statement issued later to say that nothing he had to say would have helped in the case anyway. To him, his evidence would have brought more pain to the family.

On whether they could have pursued the matter with Jayathilake on whether he knew more than he admitted, Ramli said he did not, as the man had been sentenced to jail for perjury. Did Jayathilake actually suffer from a conscience attack, or did he speak the truth the first time?

Nobody will ever know now.