This article appeared in the print edition of The Straits Times on June 27, 1995.

SINGAPORE - The seven-year-old who was found murdered on Sunday morning (June 25, 1995) was sexually assaulted, say police.

The child, Lim Shiow Rong, is believed to have been raped and suffocated to death by her assailant.

Blood stains were found on her panties after she was discovered in some bushes near a sewerage tank off Jalan Woodbridge.

The Primary One pupil from Poi Ching School went missing from her parents' coffee stall in Toa Payoh Lorong 7 at 9.30 pm on Saturday (June 24, 1995).

Her body was found the next morning, shortly after her mother reported her missing.

"I spent the whole night looking for her and calling her name. Then I went home and called the police," said Madam Ang Goon Lay, 38, during an interview in her three-room flat in Toa Payoh Lorong 5 yesterday.

The mother said in Mandarin that the girl had left after saying she was going out with "her father's friend".

"I told her not to go, but she disappeared," she said.

Madam Ang found a piece of paper torn from a cigarette carton in Shiow Rong's waist pouch which the girl had left at the stall.

On it was written a pager number, and the single Chinese character "di", meaning younger brother.

Madam Ang said she did not recognise the number.

Shiow Rong had also scrawled the date "24th June" on her bedroom wall.

"She wrote that a short while ago, I didn't know what it was because I cannot read English," the mother said.

She added that her daughter normally left the stall only to play in the neighbouring playground or to buy sweets from a nearby provision shop.

"She always came back after a short while, and she has never taken a bus or taxi by herself," she said.

Madam Ang added: "When I went to identify her body, my daughter had what looked like finger imprints around her neck and blood on her mouth, but her face was at peace, as though she was only asleep."

Shiow Rong's 46-year-old father is under treatment at a drug rehabilitation centre.

A police spokesman clarified that people do not have to wait 24 hours before making a missing persons report. As long as there is an inkling that someone is missing, a police report should be made as soon as possible.