Orchard Towers murder: Woman gets 5 months' jail
She is third person involved to be dealt with in court; four other cases pending
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The sole woman linked to last year's Orchard Towers murder was sentenced yesterday to five months' jail. Natalie Siow Yu Zhen was the third person linked to the case to be dealt with in court.
The 24-year-old Singaporean pleaded guilty to assault and being in the company of one Tan Sen Yang, 28, who had a kerambit knife in his possession at the shopping mall that day. The weapon is a curved blade resembling a claw.
Two men linked to the incident - office administrator Joel Tan Yun Sheng and hotel receptionist Ang Da Yuan, both 26 - were dealt with in court in March.
These four, along with three other men - Tan Hong Sheng, Loo Boon Chong and Chan Jia Xing - were charged with 31-year-old Satheesh Noel Gobidass' murder last year. Joel Tan, Ang and Siow had their murder charges later reduced to that of assault.
Tan Hong Sheng, 23, Loo, 26, and Chan, 27, had their charges reduced to that of consorting with a person carrying an offensive weapon in a public place.
Tan Sen Yang is the only one still facing a murder charge. The cases involving him, Loo, Chan and Tan Hong Sheng are still pending.
Siow and her group had gone to the Naughty Girl Club on the second floor of Orchard Towers in the wee hours of July 2 last year.
Their group was about to leave the club - at around 6.20am - when they ran into another group walking in.
Deputy Public Prosecutors Ang Feng Qian, Dora Tay and Benedict Teong stated in court documents that a dispute then broke out between these two groups.
The court heard that Tan Sen Yang then took out his kerambit knife and swung it around, injuring two men.
After some scuffling, someone shouted "police" and Siow's group took a lift to the ground floor.
Mr Satheesh also took an escalator down and confronted Ang. A scuffle broke out between the two men. The court heard that Joel Tan, Tan Sen Yang and Siow joined in the scuffle.
The prosecutors said that Tan Sen Yang used the knife to slash Mr Satheesh, who later collapsed face first onto the floor.
He was pronounced dead at Tan Tock Seng Hospital at around 7.30am.
Defence lawyer Amarick Gill, who represented Siow, told the court yesterday that his client had learnt her lesson.
Mr Gill added that Siow had earlier faced a capital charge and the experience had been "extremely harrowing" for her. The court also heard that Siow was very sorry about Mr Satheesh's death.
