This article appeared in the print edition of The Straits Times on Feb 16, 2000.

SINGAPORE - Linda Chua had everything to live for. A family, a fiance and a bright future.

She was just 27 when she died on Monday afternoon, eight days after she was brutally assaulted and raped at Bukit Batok Nature Park, where she had gone jogging.

She was the quintessential Singapore girl who liked food, shopping and travel.

Whenever she went on holiday, she'd choose a place where she knew she could shop.

She also enjoyed cooking Japanese and Italian food. The day she was attacked, she was to have made sukiyaki for four colleagues.

This was the picture that emerged last night, when her siblings and her fiance, a 29- year-old management consultant, broke their silence and spoke to The Straits Times.

Miss Chua was the second of four children of a retired businessman and a housewife, who live in a condominium near the park.

Her older sister, an analyst in a bank in Boston, in the United States, said: "She was a perfectionist who really strived for excellence - even in her housework."

Linda worked as hard as she played, she said. Disciplined, principled and set in her ways was how she saw her sister.

She said her sister enjoyed sports, especially squash.

Her younger sister, an accountant, said: "Linda was always very generous. She doted on us. She'd buy us gifts and take us for meals."

Miss Chua's fiance said they had planned a December church wedding. A few weeks ago, they signed an agreement to buy an HDB flat in the Marine Parade area. The agreement lapsed last Saturday, he said.

They met as freshmen at the Nanyang Technological University in 1991; both represented NTU in squash.

On weekends, he said, they would sometimes go jogging in East Coast Park and have dinner at the food centre. "She liked the Hokkien mee there," he said.

He said that it had been tough for her family and his, because they and their neighbours had been pressed for information by reporters.

"We hope that they will respect our privacy and not come to the wake and the funeral," he said.

Miss Chua worked in one of the Big Five accountancy firms and then became a finance executive in an oil company. She had hoped to go abroad to do a master's.

Her fiance said: "She never hurt anybody. I feel a lot of anger at the person or people who carried out such a foul act.

"I still wake up hoping all this is just a dream. I'm taking it one day at a time."