The Killer Who Confessed 12 Years Later | Singapore’s Lift Murder

Added: 2026-05-31

[00:00:00]On the night of October 2nd, 2001, in a quiet corridor of an HDB apartment block in Bukit Batok, Singapore, a resident approached the elevator and discovered the body of a young woman near the lift doors.

[00:00:14]The victim was 28-year-old [music] So San, a talented telecommunications manager.

[00:00:20]She was found with nine wounds.

[00:00:23]There were no direct witnesses, no fingerprints, [music] and the murder weapon had vanished without a trace.

[00:00:29]The case quickly went [music] cold, becoming one of the most haunting unsolved cases in Singapore's judicial history. But 12 years later, when the case file had long since gathered dust, the killer suddenly walked into a police station and turned himself in.

[00:00:46]Not because the police were closing in on him, but because he could no longer endure the brutal punishment imposed by the court of conscience inside his own mind.

[00:00:58]>> [music] >> So San was born in 1973.

[00:01:06]She graduated from the National University of Singapore and worked as a manager at a telecommunications company.

[00:01:13]So lived in Bukit Batok with her mother and stepfather. Her personal background showed that So San was a woman with a promising future. She had a long-time boyfriend and was considered the emotional pillar of her family.

[00:01:28]In the early 2000s, Singapore was known as a city with a strict public security system. The brutal killing of a young female manager inside the elevator of the very building where she lived shattered the residents' sense of safety at the time and sparked deep concern over security in high-rise apartment blocks.

[00:01:48]The autopsy report confirmed that So had been stabbed a total of nine times, resulting in her death. The area was later sealed off by police for about 6 hours as they investigated the case.

[00:02:01]Inside the crime scene, personal belongings were scattered across the corridor along with traces of blood.

[00:02:07]However, the forensic examination did not uncover any direct evidence.

[00:02:12]The murder weapon was never found despite an extensive police search.

[00:02:17]Police classified the case as murder and the motive behind So's killing was believed to be robbery. The case shocked the entire country at the time. So's family also put up posters appealing to the public for help in solving the case.

[00:02:32]Her family was devastated by her death and they questioned why the killer would commit such a horrific and violent act against her. So's biological father once said that he had reminded his late daughter not to resist if she was ever confronted by a robber and to comply with his demands because he himself had once been the victim of a robbery.

[00:02:54]However, the case remained unsolved for the next 12 years until 2013 when a suspect turned himself in and confessed that he had killed So after robbing her of 30 Singapore dollars in cash.

[00:03:08]Gunasegaran Ramasamy was an unruly teenager with a long criminal record dating back to the age of 13. At the time of the killing, he was serving home detention for previous offenses involving housebreaking and theft. The loose supervision under this home detention arrangement inadvertently gave him the opportunity to go out and commit the crime.

[00:03:32]According to Gunasegaran's confession, sometime between 8:00 and 9:00 p.m. on October 2nd, 2001, his sister gave him five Singapore dollars and told him to go down to the convenience store at the foot of block 205 on Bukit Batok Street 21 to buy instant noodles. Seeing this as a chance to leave the apartment without being supervised, Gunasegaran formed the idea of looking for someone to rob so he could get money to spend.

[00:04:01]He went into the kitchen, took a knife, carefully wrapped it in a sheet of newspaper, and tucked it into the back of his pants. He wandered through the nearby apartment blocks [music] and eventually stopped at block 172 on Bukit Batok West Avenue 8, where So San lived.

[00:04:20]At that moment, So San had just returned from work and was standing in the ground floor lobby area checking her mailbox.

[00:04:27]Seeing that she was alone and carrying a handbag, Gunasegaran decided to make her his target.

[00:04:33]He hid behind a wall, quickly removed the newspaper wrapped around the knife, tucked the weapon under his stomach, covered it with his t-shirt, and silently followed the victim into the elevator lobby.

[00:04:46]When he stepped into the elevator cabin with So San, Gunasegaran showed the frightening cunning of someone already familiar with crime. He used his knuckle to press the floor button, then rubbed his knuckle hard against the surface of the button to wipe away any fingerprints he might have left behind.

[00:05:06]As the elevator began moving upward, he suddenly stepped behind So San, pulled out the knife, and growled at her to hand over all the money she had with her. Trapped in a confined space, So San panicked, screamed for help, and fought back fiercely.

[00:05:22]During the struggle, Gunasegaran caused a wound to her arm.

[00:05:26]In an attempt to defend herself, So San took out 30 Singapore dollars and handed it to him. But that small amount of money did not satisfy the impulsive teenager's greed. He then tried to snatch her wallet. When So San resisted in an effort to hold on to her belongings, Gunasegaran completely lost control. That sudden burst of rage took So's life. Terrified by what he had done, Gunasegaran pushed her body away and fled down the stairwell. He returned to his sister's apartment, washed the blood off the knife in the sink, and carefully placed the weapon back into the kitchen knife rack as if nothing had happened. After his plan to get friends to help him flee Singapore failed, Gunasegaran realized that the police had no leads connecting him to the crime.

[00:06:14]This blind confidence drove him deeper into a life of violent crime, and he continued to be arrested repeatedly. His offenses ranged from theft and snatch theft to causing serious physical injury. Although he was repeatedly in and out of prison between 2002 and 2011, the police criminal database could not link him to Soe San's murder because the original crime scene had left behind almost no biological traces or fingerprints belonging to him. There was no technical basis for police to suspect that this petty criminal was the person behind the shocking murder from years earlier.

[00:06:54]But even though Gunasegaran had escaped the reach of the law, he could not escape the judgment of his own conscience.

[00:07:01]Soon after the night of the killing in 2001, he began to be overwhelmed by panic and guilt.

[00:07:08]According to psychiatric records presented in court, Gunasegaran repeatedly heard invisible voices in his head at night condemning and cursing him for taking the life of an innocent young woman for just 30 Singapore dollars. At times, he even suddenly smelled blood on his hands. These auditory hallucinations grew worse and more severe over the years, pushing him into extreme depression and anxiety.

[00:07:34]12 long years of inner torment turned his freedom into a prison of the mind.

[00:07:40]The ghost of the murder continued to haunt him, and he could no longer bear the guilt inside him. On November 17th, 2013, unable to carry the psychological burden any longer, Gunasegaran, who was then 28 years old, the same age So San had been when she was killed, decided to end his years of suffering. He walked into the Jurong East Neighborhood Police Centre on his own and confessed to the crime he had committed 12 years earlier.

[00:08:09]His voluntary surrender immediately triggered the reopening of the cold case from 2001.

[00:08:16]After his surrender, a urine test also showed that Gunasegaran had tested positive for a controlled substance.

[00:08:24]At first, Gunasegaran was charged with murder under Singapore's Penal Code, an offense that carried the death penalty.

[00:08:32]However, because Singapore law does not allow offenders who were under 18 at the time of the crime to be sentenced to death, the maximum punishment he would have faced if convicted of murder was life imprisonment and caning.

[00:08:47]During the legal proceedings, which stretched from 2013 to 2016, prosecutors carefully considered several decisive mitigating factors. These included Gunasegaran's completely voluntary confession after 12 years, made without any direct pressure from investigators closing in on him, his sincere cooperation, which helped bring closure to a long-stalled case and gave the victim's family long-awaited answers, and the fact that he had been very young at the time of the crime.

[00:09:21]Because of these factors, in 2016, prosecutors decided to reduce the charge from murder to robbery with hurt. At the hearing on March 20th, 2017, defense lawyer Ying She Yong, who represented the accused under the criminal legal aid scheme, emphasized that this was a robbery that had gone tragically wrong, and that the accused had already been punished by his own conscience for more than a decade. The lawyer pointed out that if Gunasegaran had not voluntarily turned himself in, the case would almost certainly have remained an unsolved mystery forever.

[00:09:59]His confession, the defense argued, came from genuine remorse and from a desire to bring peace and closure to the victim's family. In contrast, Deputy Public Prosecutor Bojanvir Singh argued that Gunasegaran's actions were extremely brutal and violent. The accused had not hesitated to use extreme violence against a defenseless woman.

[00:10:21]Prosecutors asked the court to impose the highest sentence available in the district court as a deterrent. District Judge Tan Jen Seng noted that although the accused had been very young at the time of the crime and had shown deep remorse by turning himself in, the seriousness of the offense and the level of violence involved demanded a harsh punishment. Judge Tan Jen Tee sentenced Gunasegaran Ramasamy to the maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and 12 strokes of the cane for robbery with hurt. He also imposed an 8-month prison sentence to run concurrently for drug consumption.

[00:11:00]The criminal sentence was carried out, but the psychological wounds it left on the victim's family and on society could never be repaired. After Sosamma's death, fear hung over Block 172 for a long time. Residents completely avoided using the elevator where the killing had taken place. Many chose to take the stairs instead, even if they lived on the higher floors, because they could not bear the haunting feeling attached to it. Sosamma's family could no longer continue living in a place filled with painful memories of their devoted daughter. Quietly, they sold their Bukit Batok apartment and moved somewhere else. As for Gunasegaran, he was sent to Changi Prison to serve his sentence.

[00:11:45]There, he served a 10-year prison term with the possibility of remission after completing at least 2/3 of the sentence, provided he maintained good behavior in prison. Gunasegaran has since been released. From a criminological perspective, the murder of Soosain stands as a striking example of the power of the court of conscience. It shows that even when a perpetrator can defeat the most advanced investigative methods and avoid legal punishment for years, he still may not be able to escape the mechanism of self-judgment within his own mind. His inner torment and auditory hallucinations showed that for some criminals, freedom in the outside world can sometimes be more brutal and suffocating than the stone walls of Changi Prison. In the end, justice, though delayed, was carried out, giving answers and at least a measure of closure to a tragedy that had stretched across nearly two decades.

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