Man admits to torturing woman, 19, to death; her brother and their MLM coach facing murder charge

SINGAPORE — A 19-year-old woman was starved and tortured for two months by a man she had met through a club selling Herbalife nutritional products in acts which allegedly also involved her older brother and his married girlfriend, the High Court heard on Feb 9.

Huang Baoying died on May 5, 2021, from the final acts of abuse carried out on her in a flat at Block 602 Clementi West Street 1.

In her last hours, she was repeatedly beaten with a wooden stick, forced to sit upright with her hands tied and raised above her head, had salt rubbed into an open wound on her leg, and was drenched under a running tap for 15 minutes.

The teenager was left on a mattress in the living room, where she died from a combination of severe malnutrition, sepsis and extensive blunt force trauma.

She weighed only 27.6 kg at her autopsy, having lost 43 per cent of her body weight over 11 months from June 2020, when her weight was last recorded as 48.8 kg.

On Feb 9, Lim Peng Tiong, a member of the multi-level marketing club selling Herbalife products, pleaded guilty to a charge of culpable homicide not amounting to murder for causing her death.

Among other things, the 66-year-old, who owned the Clementi flat, admitted that he beat the victim about 240 times with a wooden stick on May 1, 2021, allegedly on the instructions of their Herbalife coach, Chee Mei Wan.

Prosecutors said Huang was "tortured for no other reason than some twisted project to purportedly 'improve' her behaviour".

Chee had introduced a system of fines to "correct" the bad habits of club members that would negatively affect the marketing and sale of products, which in turn would affect the commission she earned.

The 46-year-old, who was married at the time, was in a romantic relationship with Huang's brother, Huang Bocan, 34.

She was the only one in the group who was not subject to the punishment, which was doled out to the siblings and Lim.

The disciplinary regime escalated into full-blown torture and physical abuse for Huang.

The teenager was punished the most because Chee and Huang's brother thought she lacked discipline and motivation, and performed poorly in product sales.

Between Feb 16, 2021, and May 4, 2021, Huang was deprived of food, confined in the toilet for prolonged periods, and brutally beaten despite being weak and injured.

Both Chee and Huang Bocan are facing murder charges, and their cases are still pending in court.

The trio were originally charged with voluntarily causing grievous hurt to the teenager with a wooden pole.

Huang Bocan was first charged over his sister's death, the day after her body was found.

Chee and Lim were charged on May 12.

The charges were upgraded to that of murder on June 29, 2021.

This story will be updated.

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This article was first published in The Straits Times. Permission required for reproduction.