So, in case if you didn't know, I got a car! ahhaha.. and obviously, I had to give it a cool name plate =D
Mmm... it's alright if you didn't find that funny. I laughed and that's all that matters (:
My three-week run on finishing three major assignments has finally ended. But I'm sick. Literally. I can hardly breathe... and I'm sleeping a lot. But yes, all assignments = over! Only one exam left - my first and last - and I shall now breathe a big, deep breath, before diving into books and papers again.
Anyway, as promised, here is my true crime story. Some disclaimers: this is a true story, I only made it sound more fictional than factual; all accounts and progress of the story were based on witnesses and defendant's testimonies from the trial.
Lastly, enjoy!
Of fate and mistakes
It was dark out and there were but a handful of cars left in the basement car park of Bangsar Shopping Complex. Realising that she’d left her parking ticket in the car instead of in her bag; she turned away from the auto-pay machine towards her mother and said, “Mum, I’ll just walk to the car to get the parking ticket, okay? I left it in the car, so just wait here.” Then she took brisk steps towards where her car was parked on a far corner of the parking lot.
The parking lot was brightly lit, and as Canny Ong walked across the cold, hard floor, she thought of Brendon, whom she hadn’t seen in 13 days. She’d returned from the United States to Kuala Lumpur to visit her father who recently had a kidney removed. She was worried about her father’s condition, knowing that it could be fatal. But at the same time, she couldn’t help but miss being in the arms of her husband, even though she was only a few hours away from boarding a plane that was homeward bound. Canny was, at that moment, in the wrong place, at the wrong time.
At 8.49pm, June 13 2003, Ahmad Najib was spotted walking into the basement car park of Bangsar Shopping Complex. He was at the time, the team leader for a night shift group in-charged of cleaning aircrafts. His shift started at 7.45pm as usual, and would end at 4am the next morning. But this man with a balding head of hair and laughing eyes did not turn up for work that night. Instead, he was at the basement car park of Bangsar Shopping complex, looking to settle a vendetta he had against a woman. Through his previous experience when he used to work at this same car park, he thought she would be here tonight even though he couldn’t remember what she looked like exactly. He decided to wait around for her, thinking she’d turn up sooner or later. However, his reasons for choosing that fateful night to see her or his vendetta against her are still unclear.
It had been almost two hours, and still, no sign of the woman he wanted to see. However, he was in luck when a few minutes later, he spotted a lady in a black dress walking across the car park. She was without a doubt, Chinese, and her long, black, luscious hair immediately reminded him of the woman he was looking for. He speculated her build and decided that she was the one he needed to speak with. Her heels clicked loudly against the floor, and with each step ringing in his ear, he hurried up from behind her to make sure she didn’t leave before he had the chance to talk to her. As he approached her, his step became more careful, and with each drawn-out stride, he was by her side just as she opened her car door. He held an arm out and gently yet firmly ordered her to get into the car, and move into the passenger seat as he moved into the driver’s seat.
Her lips trembled, and he could see her shivering as he spoke in a hushed tone, “Just do as I say. Keep quiet; don’t try anything funny and you’ll be okay.” Then, putting the car into gear, Ahmad drove the car out off the car park hurriedly, ignoring the parking barrier at the exit as he drove straight through it and onto the main road. Both Canny Ong and Ahmad Najib were at the wrong place, at the wrong time.
Almost half an hour later, plain clothed patrolling policemen, Ravichandran and Roslan were still riding on their motorcycles around a quiet industrial area situated near the Subang Airport. Ravi noticed that a Proton parked on the roadside was still there from half an hour before. Feeling suspicious, Ravi decided to approach the car to check out if anything was wrong. So, at 11.15pm on June 13 2003, the two men drove towards the car and Ravi parked next to the driver’s side door. Ravi switched off his engine and gave a light rap on the window.
As the window wound down, Ravi noticed first, a Malay man in the driver’s seat and then a Chinese woman in the passenger seat. “Good Evening sir, madam, my name’s Ravichandran, I’m just a policemen patrolling the streets and this is my colleague, Roslan. Can I just have a quick look at your IDs?”
“Sure thing, I’m Ahmad Najib,” the man calmly said as he handed over both their IDs.
“And are you Ong Lay Kian, madam?” asked Ravi, referring to Canny’s Chinese name. Canny nodded in response.
Just for safety procedures, Ravi decided to ask Ahmad, who was wearing a cap and a dark blue sweater to step out of the car briefly for inspection but Ahmad refused. Raising more suspicion in Ravi, he looked over at Canny and noticed her hands neatly folded on her lap and her breathing was steady. Refusing to let the matter go so simply, Ravi insisted that both of them step out of the car briefly. Canny then promptly reached for the door handle but Ahmad stopped her by saying that Ravi and his colleague were robbers, not policemen. Canny then immediately placed her hands back onto her lap.
After trying to get the two occupants to step out of the car for the third time, Ravi tightened his grip around the handles of his motorcycle. He warned them that they would be taken to the nearby police station if they refused to follow his orders. Ravi then noticed Canny make some hand gestures which he didn’t understand. He watched the woman point to herself and then put both her hands together and shook them as if she was praying and then she pointed to Ahmad Najib. Canny made the hand gestures twice but Ravi didn’t understand her, and by the time Ahmad became aware of Canny’s actions, he became alarmed and sped off while catching the policemen off-guard. Ravi then fired two shots at the driver’s-side front tyres but failed to take down the registration number of the car. Ravi and Roslan tried pursuing Ahmad but failed, because they simply couldn’t catch up with a speeding car while on their motorcycles.
At 11.20pm, June 13 2003, Pearly Visvanathan, Canny’s mother, was still stranded at the basement car park of Bangsar Shopping Complex. She’d walked up and down the car park several times despite having a terrible aching in her leg. Finally, she resorted to getting help from the security guard of Bangsar Shopping Complex. “I have a feeling she’s been kidnapped,” said Pearly.
“Ok, ma’am, calm down and look here, this was at 10.44pm, that’s your daughter, right?” asked the Bangsar Shopping Complex operation executive Lim Ah Seng. A tape showing Canny with her mother at the auto-pay machine was playing in the VCR.
“Yes, she left the ticket in the car and went to retrieve it. That’s what she told me, but she never returned,” said Pearly.
“And here, in this tape, at 10.50pm, is that your car leaving the building? There are two people in the car,” said Lim. She reached out for something to keep her balance.
The night of June 13 2003, Aminah was with her sister, Hamsirah and husband, Yusof and another brother-in-law, Hamid. They were on their way home, driving through a back alley near the Subang Parade Shopping Complex when they came to a halt behind a car which seemed to have some tyre trouble. The family piled out of the car as Ahmad Najib approached them, asking to borrow a jack because he had a punctured tyre. While Hamid helped Ahmad change the tyre, Aminah noticed a woman seated in the car. Walking towards the front of the car, Aminah looked in at Canny through the windshield and noticed Canny’s eyes were widened with her eyebrows creased, her lips tightly pursed. Aminah shared this observation with Hamsirah and Yusof, who then approached Canny and tapped on the window. Yusof asked Canny to get out of the car but she refused. Sensing something amiss, the three of them returned to their car and took down the registration number of the car that Canny was in.
When Aminah went to check up on Canny again, she made a signal by turning her head and body towards Ahmad, who was changing the tyre on the driver's side. She stopped signalling when Ahmad looked up at her. Aminah recalls in her testimony during the trial, that the tyre, punctured by Ravi’s shots couldn’t be changed because the jack didn’t fit. But as soon as Ahmad realised Canny had been giving signals again, he quickly drove off. Aminah shared during the trial that it was clear Canny made no signs of intention to get out of the car.
Amidst awkward silences, Ahmad remembered his pregnant wife at home, who was just about due anytime soon, and thought about the spark they only used to have between them. But here he was with Canny alone in her family’s car.
Feeling a sudden strong desire and being unable to stop it from escaping his lips, he gave a light laugh and said jokingly, “I’d love to have sex with you right now.”
Canny was quiet for a long time and remained still. He began panicking and started rapping on the steering wheel. He then reached beneath his car seat and swiftly pulled out a knife and placed it on the dashboard silently. She later consented to the suggestion after what seemed like the longest silence he’d ever heard.
Stretched across the backseat of Canny’s family car, Ahmad Najib suddenly felt alarmed and quickly grabbed his knife and placed it on his leg, without the intention of using it violently. Canny however, who had been silent all this while, surprised Ahmad when she wiped her lip and suddenly started to put up a struggle – something she hadn’t done all night. He later testified that Canny wasn’t angry or crying up until that point. But the sudden onslaught of emotions from Canny came as something new to Ahmad and in a hasty, fumbled moment, he grabbed his knife and stabbed Canny twice in the abdomen. A few moments later, the full effect of his actions dawned upon Ahmad as Canny cried out in pain, which made him break out into more sweat. Immediately, he jumped into the driver’s seat and drove away.
After driving a fair distance along Old Klang Road from where they were previously parked, Ahmad helped the still alive Canny put on her clothes before carrying her to a high embankment. He tied her feet and hands together then gagged her mouth, and walked back to the car when he saw a van and a car drive up and park alongside Canny’s car. Two men got out of the vehicles and started ransacking the car before leaving, taking with them Canny’s mobile phone and purse.
Dragging the half-conscious Canny into a manhole in an attempt to hide the body, Ahmad felt hopeless. What happened as an accident was now about to take a life away. He didn’t know what to do but to stay with her as she drifted in and out of consciousness. He hadn’t meant to hurt her, she was a kind and caring person as much as he could tell, he really didn’t mean her any harm.
“I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean for this to happen. I hope you don’t mind, I’m going to burn your body. I don’t want to go to jail for this.” Ahmad said to Canny as he held her hand.
At that very moment, taking slow breaths and blinking deliberately, the gag in Canny’s mouth came lose. Ahmad recalls her last words during his testimony as, “Don’t worry about me. Just leave me here. I’m going to heaven anyway.”
Canny Ong was not the woman Ahmad Najib had a vendetta against and he realized his mistake shortly after abducting her. During his prosecution trial, he claimed he intended to release her when they were parked near the Subang Airport around 11.15pm, but was spooked when a motorcyclist approached and identified himself as a policeman. Later, when he prepared to hide her body, he thought of sending Canny to the hospital and using the money that was in her purse to pay for any immediate fees required. However, fate had it that those men who ransacked the car would prevent that from happening.
Leaving Canny head-first in the manhole with her legs sticking out, Ahmad tried covering up the hole with a plank of wood and two tires but could not do much more. Abandoning Canny’s car a few kilometers away, Ahmad then took a taxi home. He returned to the site the next morning with two bottles of petrol.
And here, an autumn evening, just before sunset. As you can tell, it was a very very cloudy day! And that little white dot at the top of the picture is the moon :)
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