WITHIN a mere five hours, he snapped. But the trigger that caused Malaysian cleaner Nordin Montong to leap into a tigers' den on Thursday is still elusive.

We now know that he had a pleasant conversation with his family at 7am that fateful day. His sister said he gave no inkling of irrational behaviour or distress.

He had called his mother in Sarawak at 7am, as was his daily routine.

Mr Nordin, the second of six children and the eldest son, would call his family up to four times a day.

On Thursday, he spoke about wanting to return to Sarawak for a holiday in February. And he talked about the weather.

His 52-year-old mother did not suspect anything was amiss. She hung up soon after, thinking that he would call to speak to her again at lunch time.

But that call never came.

At 12.15pm, Mr Nordin, a contract cleaner at the Singapore Zoo, was mauled by two of the three white tigers in their enclosure.

He suffered a fractured skull and multiple bite wounds to his neck, and died soon after.

Zookeepers said Mr Nordin had appeared distressed and had said to them, 'Goodbye, I won't be seeing you again'. He was also seen throwing the contents of his wallet into the crocodile enclosure.

But his close-knit family refuses to believe that something was bothering him. They cannot believe that he deliberately jumped into harm's way.

When they first heard about the incident, their first thought was: Did someone push him into the tigers' enclosure?

In a phone interview with The New Paper from Kuching, Sarawak, his elder sister, Madam Nora Montong, 34, said: 'We don't know what happened. Maybe he got pushed? Maybe he was in a fight? We can't accept it.'

The housewife described her brother as a happy-go-lucky person who recently told them that he had found a girlfriend - his first.

She said in Malay: 'He said he would be back in February and that he was going to get married.'

He first told the family about the girlfriend last month on Hari Raya.

Madam Nora does not know the woman's name, only that she is from Sabah and works in Singapore.

He never mentioned any relationship problems in his frequent calls home.

Madam Nora said that in the four months her brother was in Singapore, he would call daily whenever he was free, taking turns to speak to his parents, siblings, nieces and nephews.

The day before he died, he was speaking to Madam Nora's 6-month-old son on the phone, saying he could not wait to see him.

'He joked with the baby and made cooing noises,' Madam Nora said.

In his Thursday morning call, Mr Nordin spoke to his mother about mundane things like how the weather had been cold recently, and whether she had eaten.

Now, instead of a happy homecoming, the family is preparing to receive his body, which is scheduled to be flown back by his employers, Sun City, this afternoon.

Mr Nordin used to clean at a hotel before being transferred to the zoo, Madam Nora said.

'We were quite worried that he was working with wild animals but he never mentioned tigers. He only talked about the monkeys and chimpanzees. He was assigned to clean those enclosures.'

Madam Nora said her mother was too distraught to be interviewed. Her mother was the last person in the family to speak to him.

'She is very emotional and can't sleep. Of all of us, she was closest to him because he was the eldest son.'

It was Madam Nora's husband who picked up the phone on Thursday and received the bad news from Mr Nordin's agent.

Madam Nora said: 'He was shocked. When he told us, we couldn't believe it.'

Their shock was made worse by the different versions of his death that they heard.

She said: 'The first time, the agent said he fell. We were able to accept that.

'But after that, the agent called again and said there was a video of him jumping. Until we see it, we won't believe it.'

Could it have been because of girlfriend problems?

Madam Nora was emphatic: 'No. When he had trouble, he would think positive. For example, when he had no money, he wouldn't get stressed. He would take the initiative to get help, like ask for money to buy cigarettes.

'He wouldn't see it as a big problem and he would discuss things with us.'

She said her brother worked in construction in his last job in Sarawak, earning RM550 ($230) a month.

Mr Nordin, who studied until Form 2 (Secondary 2), decided to move to Singapore four months ago to earn more money and gain new experiences.

He earned more than $1,000 a month in his job here.

He was a simple man, she said. He did not know how to use money transfers, so he told his family he would bring back his savings when he returned home in February.

Now, the family just wants to know what happened.

Madam Nora repeatedly asked The New Paper if we had a copy of the video, who the eyewitnesses were, and if we could help investigate his death.

She said: 'We all feel very unsatisfied. Where's the proof?

'We don't want people to speak badly of him. I can't think of any reason he would want to end his life.

This article was first published in The New Paper on November 15, 2008.