Commonwealth Murder: Netizens Unveil Son’s Blog & Neighbours Recount How Grandma Was Killed

If you’ve been keeping up with Baddy Feed or any news of some kind, then you’d have heard of the Commonwealth murder or the 22-year-old who killed his mother and grandmother on 27 Oct 2019.

Gabriel Lien Goh, 22, had stabbed his mother, 56, in what seemed like an argument. Their domestic helper helped his grandmother, 90, to escape, but Goh soon caught up and beat her to death.

He was arrested later that night and charged with murder on 28 Oct.

Goh’s neighbour, who are Caucasians, have told their account of the story to Lianhe Wanbao.

The Neighbour’s Account Of What Happened

On that day, the neighbour’s 32-year-old brother-in-law and 68-year-old mother-in-law saw Goh’s grandmother outside their gate injured and crying for helping.

They helped her in the house, but Goh then arrived and punched them angrily, with enough force to cause them to feel faint and disoriented.

The neighbour’s brother-in-law tried to calm Goh down but instead fainted from another punch.

Goh also punched his neighbour’s mother-in-law in the face and caused her to fall.

Subsequently, Goh ran into the house and beat his own grandmother to death.

The neighbour’s brother-in-law called his sister, who is the neighbour’s wife, as soon as he recovered.

On receiving the call, the neighbour and his wife returned home immediately.

The neighbour’s brother-in-law and mother-in-law were sent to the hospital. The brother-in-law had a swollen left eye and needed to be warded for monitoring. The mother-in-law has multiple bruises on her face.

Goh’s Blog: A Story of Change

Digging around the webs, you might stumble upon the Sammy Boy forums, where a user had found Goh’s blog.

If you’re as nosey as I am, you probably wanted to dig through the blog to understand what happened to him.

The first post of the blog was posted on 8 August 2015.

A post seems to indicate that Goh grew up in a single-parent family.

From 2016 to 2017, the posts seemed like they were dedications made to his girlfriend, with posts like “Love itself so poisonous. Not when given, but when taken. More when taken, than never given.”

And as with any relationship, it would appear that sometimes there were frictions.

But in early 2019, the tone of his blog changed.

In particular, a post made on 3 Jan 2019 marked the transition.

Here’s the post, titled “2018// 2019”:

New Year’s Eve, spent it with the love of my life. There’s no human being in this world that will ever compare. NO human being. Spent with my Mom too, I love her and her strength.

New Year’s Day was silent, lonely and realistic. The dawn of a new year, almost too large and too big for me to absorb. I was going to sleep, sulking in the blues of a another year of pain and illusions, (yes). Then Kessler called me. And when Kessler calls you to go out, oh its not a good thing (it was half good). New Year didn’t seem so boring anymore.

2/1 Jackson is going in for a long long long fucking time and I may never hear from him again. We are close by something strange and it broke my heart to see where he is going. Drink drink drink drink. Beyond comprehension.

3/1 Now I’m AWOL, now I made my girlfriend cry, now I made my Mom sad, now I’m all sorts fucked up everywhere. That’s good.

9/2 You’re gone, with me. Died together and had a good chapter.

The last sentence seems to indicate that something had happened between Goh and his girlfriend.

It is not known if they have broken up, but the blog writings were different since then.

There are only five posts after the change in tone.

Goh’s third last post seems to indicate that he felt trapped in some way.

In his second last post, he mentions “9 tabs of (lysergic acid diethylamide) into my hands.”

And in his last post, made on 27 Oct, the same day as the murder, he asked why are we not legalising marijuana and why do we “hide the truth”?

Lysergic acid diethylamide is also known as LSD, a hallucinogenic drug.

It’s not known if Goh actually had these in his possession or is just rambling.

So… Drugs? Not Necessarily.

Some netizens were already speculating if drugs were a reason why Goh went on a killing spree.

But if you were to ask me, I say it’s better if we don’t speculate. I do think that Goh’s situation is pretty complicated, which may have resulted in a series of compounding bad decisions leading to the murder.

For one thing, things written on a blog doesn’t necessarily reflect the truth, but it opens a window to the psychology and inner thoughts of the writer.

To let me prove my point: I have a 12-inch long penis and a passive income of S$10,000 per month.

See, writing that I have a big donger doesn’t mean I have it (or do I? You’ll never know). It just shows that I wrote it. The more important question is why did I write it.

Goh could have just wrote that about drugs to indicate that he wanted it. He could have just held it in possession but not actually used it. He could also have used it.

Let’s not speculate, and wait for more information to be released. Definitely also don’t pretend to be a psychologist and try to diagnose Goh from his blog alone.

(Yes, I know. Ironically I’m doing that despite asking you not to do so.)