Like any other study mama from China, Huang Na's mother brought her to Singapore in early 2003 for a better education.

The girl's dream was to be a doctor so she could in turn give her mother a better life.

Huang Na also learnt to be streetsmart and independent, as her mother had to shuttle between Singapore and Fujian to care for her 11-month-old half-sister.

On Sept 27, 2004, a day before Huang Na's eighth birthday, her mother returned to their hometown for two weeks.

Huang Na, who once even took a flight back to China alone, was left in the care of friends, who lived with her and her mother in a small room on the upper floor of a fruit and vegetable company at the Pasir Panjang Wholesale Centre.

The bubbly girl would go to school herself, take her meals at a nearby food court and sometimes even cook for her and her neighbours.

She showered in a common toilet. The centre's auction hall was her playground.

On the afternoon of Oct 10, Huang Na called her mother from a phone booth and asked her to buy a computerised English dictionary and a pair of sandals. They spoke for about six minutes.

That was the last time Madam Huang Shuying heard her voice. And it was the last day Huang Na was seen alive - barefooted and wearing a blue denim jacket and bermudas.

On Oct 31, her badly-decomposed body was found stuffed inside a brown cardboard box less than half her size.

The box was found in dense undergrowth at Telok Blangah Hill Park, just hours after Penang-born Took Leng How was grilled by police.

The vegetable packer, who worked at the wholesale centre and had previously shared a flat with Huang Na and her mother, admitted to strangling the girl with his bare hands in a storeroom where he had lured her for a game of hide-and-seek.

The news left a nation shocked.

According to the prosecution's case, Took's colleagues last saw him at 1pm on Oct 10 walking side-by-side with the girl near the storeroom, with a bag of mangoes in his hand. Several workers were surprised to see Took hanging around the wholesale centre, as there was little work on Sundays.

At about 1.40pm, Took coaxed the girl to play hide-and-seek with him in the storeroom and offered her mangoes to eat. Remnants of the fruit were later found in her stomach during the autopsy.

Took stripped her, bound her limbs with raffia string and sexually assaulted her.

To make sure she could not report what he did to her, Took smothered her. He covered her mouth and nose for at least two minutes, until her body was limp.

To ensure she was dead, he stamped on her and kicked her before packing her body inside nine layers of plastic bags. He then put the bundle in a cardboard box and sealed it with adhesive tape.

It was still daytime, and so too risky to dispose of the box. So Took rested until 5.30pm at the wholesale centre. Then he borrowed a motorcycle from a friend who also worked at the centre. He went home to his Telok Blangah flat and watched TV.

At about 8pm, he returned to the storeroom to retrieve the box, tied it to the back of the motorcycle and drove up to Telok Blangah Hill Park, where he dumped it. At 9pm, he returned the motorcycle to his friend. An hour later, Huang Na's guardian, Madam Li Xiu Qin, told police the girl was missing.

"The accused was often Huang Na's playmate despite the age difference," said Deputy Public Prosecutor Lawrence Ang.

"How was she to know that the person whom she trusted most among all the people at the Pasir Panjang Wholesale Centre would soon ravage her and snuff out her life, cruelly and mercilessly?"

Forensic evidence played a big role in the trial.

Analysis showed that the adhesive tape used to seal the carton came from the same roll of tape found in the storeroom.

Part of Took's fingerprints were also found on the roll.

The bags used to wrap Huang Na's body were found to be similar to ones in the Pasir Panjang shop where Took worked.

Hundreds of cloth fibres from both Took and Huang Na's clothes were also found in the storeroom.

The accused never took the stand in his defence. Instead, Took relied on the testimony of defence psychiatrist Dr R. Nagulendran to claim diminished responsibility and escape the noose.

The psychiatrist told the court that Took's "irrational" and "inexplicable" strangling of Huang Na, whom he "considered as a daughter", and his reactions to her death indicated schizophrenia. That meant Took could not be fully accountable for his actions.

The accused's family, he said, also told him how Took had acted strangely whenever he returned to see them in Penang. His mother Loo Swee Heow said her son talked about "having spirits in him" and "often smiled to himself".

Dr Nagulendran added how Took looked to mediums for help on two occasions, once in Kulai, Malaysia, and another time in Geylang.

Prosecution psychiatrist G. Sathyadevan however argued that it was not possible that Took could have been suffering from delusions and hallucinations, much less schizophrenia, when he killed Huang Na.

He said: "I have never seen such a case in my entire years as a psychiatrist where a patient becomes mentally ill right at the time when the offence is committed. There are usually disturbances before that."

Took was not mentally dull either, he added, even though his IQ of 76 put him just above the mentally retarded bracket, which is usually considered 70 or below.

In its submissions, the prosecution also pointed out that he had no history of mental abnormality, and there was nothing disorganised about the way he went about killing Huang Na.

Deputy Public Prosecutor Ang said: "He had calmly and systematically gone about killing the deceased. His every action during the killing was pregnant with reason."

On Aug 26, after a 13-day hearing, Took was found guilty and sentenced to hang.

Justice Lai Kew Chai noted the meticulous manner in which Took had planned the disposal of Huang Na's body and clothes. He chose a rubbish bin that was not monitored by a camera to dump her clothes.

He wrapped her in nine plastic bags, encased her in a box and used the cover of night to dump the body.

"His conduct after the killing was clearly the product of a cold and calculated mind."

Madam Huang and her husband at Huang Na's grave, which is situated halfway up a mountain in their hometown in China.