Boon Tat Street Murder: Daughter Speaks Up, Revealing More Behind The Tragic Stabbing

By
Shawn Ambrose
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On Monday (21 Sep), 72-year-old Tan Nam Seng was sentenced to 8 and a half years in prison.

His crime? Stabbing his son-in-law to death outside a coffee shop in 2017. 

CCTV footage showed the younger man running away from his attacker and collapsing outside a restaurant on Boon Tat Street.

Tan, incensed, could be seen kicking the victim in the face.

He prevented onlookers from helping the poor victim, saying he deserved to die.

The 39-year-old man, Spencer Tuppani, succumbed to his injuries.

It was then reported that Tan had called his daughter just minutes after the attack to tell her what happened while waiting for the police to arrive.

Daughter Speaks Up, Revealing More About The Tragic Stabbing

On 10 July, 46-year-old Shyller Tan received a call she will never forget.

Her elderly father had called her to tell her that he had killed her husband.

Shyller, who was driving to work at the time, “went hysterical”, and rushed to the scene of the crime, screaming and crying the whole time.

Speaking to ST after her father’s sentencing, Shyller said her father had not been himself ever since he discovered his son-in-law had a mistress and children.

Tuppani was also allegedly trying to wrest control of the business that Tan had founded and entrusted to his children.

“He loved us so much that he snapped…. no one wanted this to happen”, Shyller said.

Shyller had only found out about her husband’s philandering ways in Feb 2017, just five months before the attack.

Her husband admitted that he’d had two children with his mistress, conceived through in-vitro fertilisation.

She later discovered that her mother-in-law had known the whole time after friends sent her pictures of Tuppani and his mother celebrating a birthday for one of his kids.

“I felt totally deceived by her false pretences as she had kept it all from me”, she said.

This is why Shyller empathises with her father, who was found to be suffering from a major depressive disorder at the time of the attack, which led to his murder charge being reduced.

“Betrayal is not an emotion that is easy to quell, and I too suffered many sleepless nights, but can only imagine it must have been a fraction of what my dad went through”, Shyller said.

A Brief Recap

Before he attacked his son-in-law, Tan was in a great deal of stress because of Tuppani’s affairs.

He was also upset that his son-in-law was trying to seize control of the shipping company that he had founded in 1974.

The business expanded into several countries as years went by and all of Tan’s daughters worked in the company.

Distressed, Tan tried to reach out to Tuppani several times but their discussions were futile.

On 10 July 2017, though, Tan got his chance. He spotted Tuppani having lunch with his friends at a coffee shop along Telok Ayer Street.

Before he approached Tuppani, Tan went back to his office to retrieve a knife, and then returned to the coffee shop.

After another fruitless discussion, Tan pulled the knife out from his bag and started stabbing Tuppani in the chest, saying he was “too much” in Hokkien.

He made no attempt to flee the scene and calmly sat down to wait for the police to arrive while he told his daughter what he had done.

Visits Father in Prison with Children

Now, Shyller regularly visits her father in prison, along with her three children.

The children know what happened, but they do not talk about the attack anymore.

Shyller said the only thing that had brought her consolation was her father’s reduced sentenced, as it allowed her to “begin healing”.

“I just want all this to end”, she said.

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Shawn Ambrose
Email: [email protected]