‘The Cosplay Killer’ Gets 22 Years Jail Instead of Death After Appeal

Another day, another round of bad news around the world.

Me: Aight guys, let’s start the day off with some happy news to brighten our days! How about that news that people spending less on plastic bottles and meat to start-

Editor: Here’s a murder case.

Me: But, we are Goody Feed not Baddy Fee-

*Editor stares while chin-pointing at pay cheque and reader stats*

So here’s the case of the cosplay killer, which happened in 2013 in Malaysia. As you can probably tell from the number of links in this article, this murder was pretty huge news at the time. SAYS did a very comprehensive summary in 2013 here.

Teenage Girl Found Dead In Suitcase

On 21 Oct 2013, Ng Yuk Tim, 15, left home to meet with friends for breakfast, then took the LRT to meet some friends to work on cosplay costumes for an event at around 3.30pm.

This was the last time she would be heard from. She didn’t have much on her (only RM20 and nothing else), so her family got concerned and later reported her missing at about 1.30am midnight.

Police were then led to a suitcase by Poon Wai Hong, then 23, containing her dead body near Kota Kemuning, around 22 Oct 2013, 10pm.

Confession Of Murder

With persistent questioning due to discrepancies in Poon Wai Hong’s recounting of events, they managed to get him to confess to the murder. In his initial confession, he tried to have sex with her before striking her with a dumbbell.

Ms Ng’s death happened in Poon’s house, where she was to help him with his costume, at Kampung Cempaka in Kelana Jaya between 3pm to 4 pm on 21 Oct 2013.

At that time, friends of Poon Wai Hong couldn’t believe that he committed the murder. It also seemed like some of the news focused on the angle of cosplaying, which irked people in the cosplay community since the hobby is unrelated to the murder.

It is believed that the victim and murderer knew each other for 5 years, but it’s not clear what relationship they have.

Tried To Have Sex, Resulted In Fight

According to Poon’s lawyer (Sep 2019), Poon wanted to have sex with Ms Ng, but an interruption by a friend caused Poon to leave the house. After that, Ms Ng didn’t want to have sex anymore which then started a fight.

Poon tried to stop her from shouting, and after she bit him, Poon pushed her away to prevent her from attacking him with a stun gun.

After taking his specs, which had fallen to the ground, he then saw Ms Ng on the ground, motionless, and had hit her head on a dumbbell.

This is corroborated by DNA evidence, since the ring of the dumbbell had Ms Ng’s blood, while the handle didn’t have Poon’s DNA. It’s not clear whether the injuries could have lead to death.

In his panic, he stuffed her body in a suitcase.

No signs of sexual assault were found on her body.

Reduction Of Sentence To 22 Years In Jail

After the confession, he was initially charged in 2013 under Section 302 of the Penal Code, where death sentence is mandatory after conviction.

He was later sentenced to death in April 2018.

This month (September 2019), the court heard Poon’s appeal and reduced the sentence to 22 years instead, which will start from the date of his arrest on 22 Oct 2013.

Prosecution To Appeal To The Federal Court

The prosecution however argues that circumstantial evidence suggests Poon had murdered Ms Ng, and they will be appealing against this reduction of sentence soon.

Yuk Tim was said to be a very caring person.