Felicia Teo case: Jail for man who dumped and burned body, lied to police to cover up drug offences
Ms Felicia Teo had died of unknown circumstances after consuming ecstasy on Jun 30, 2007. To avoid prosecution for drug offences, Ahmad Danial Mohamed Rafa’ee placed her body in a carton box with his accomplice before burning it.
Ahmad Danial Mohamed Rafa'ee and Felicia Teo. (Photos: CNA/Gaya Chandramohan, Blogger/findfelicia)
Lydia Lam
@LydiaLamCNA14 Oct 2022 10:28AM(Updated: 14 Oct 2022 06:28PM)
Bookmark
WhatsAppTelegramFacebookTwitterEmailLinkedIn
SINGAPORE: A man who was originally charged with the murder of 19-year-old Felicia Teo 13 years after she went missing was sentenced on Friday (Oct 14) to 26 months' jail for lesser charges.
Ahmad Danial Mohamed Rafa'ee, 37, admitted to four charges of depositing Ms Teo's corpse, misappropriating her belongings, fabricating false evidence and giving false evidence to the police. Another two charges were considered in sentencing.
ADVERTISEMENT
However, as Ahmad Danial had spent more than one-and-a-half years on remand, he will likely not have to serve more jail time after factoring in remission.
He had allegedly committed the offences with an accomplice, Mr Ragil Putra Setia Sukmarahjana, who is now 32 and at large.
Ahmad Danial was given a discharge not amounting to an acquittal for the murder charge in June this year, after being remanded for about one-and-a-half years.
Prosecutors said the main reason they asked for a discharge not amounting to an acquittal was because Mr Ragil was still at large, with no evidence that he was dead.
THE CASE
Ms Teo, who would have been 34 this year, was a student at La Salle College of Fine Arts as it was known at the time. Mr Ragil, who was 18 at the time, was her schoolmate while Ahmad Danial was then a 22-year-old graphic designer.ADVERTISEMENT
On Jul 3, 2007, Ms Teo's mother lodged a police report, saying her daughter was missing and uncontactable. She had last seen her daughter on Jun 29, 2007.
She said her daughter was last seen with Ahmad Danial and Mr Ragil. However, when questioned, Ahmad Danial and Mr Ragil lied to the police that Ms Teo had left the unit to meet someone at East Coast Park.
Ahmad Danial lied to investigators that Ms Teo had left angrily after he made comments about her having many boyfriends and calling her a "bitch".
However, what really happened was that the trio returned to Mr Ragil's flat in Marine Terrace on the early morning of Jun 30, 2007, after a party at La Salle.
The trio consumed ecstasy inside the flat. Sometime before 6am, Ms Teo died due to unknown circumstances.
ADVERTISEMENT
When the two men realised she was dead, they came up with a plan to dispose of her body as they did not want to get into trouble for drug consumption nor go to jail.
The men placed Ms Teo's body on a mattress in the flat and covered it with another mattress to hide the body. They cleaned up the unit and took her phone, placing it near East Coast Park to mislead the police.
That same day, the two men went to hardware shops to buy tools to dispose of the body. They then returned to the flat, placed the body in a carton box and sealed it with tape.
They carried the body to the ground floor via the staircase, to avoid closed-circuit television cameras at the lift lobby.
They took a cab to Punggol Track 24 with the carton box containing her body. At a deserted location there, they dug a hole in the ground and placed the box in the hole, before pouring kerosene over it and lighting it on fire.
ADVERTISEMENT
After the fire died down, the pair covered the hole and left the location before disposing of the tools. That same day, they took Ms Teo's laptop, camera and camera lenses. Ahmad Danial later gave the laptop to his father.
TWO MEN LIED TO POLICE
After Ms Teo was reported missing, police interviewed both Ahmad Danial and Mr Ragil.As part of their agreed plan, they both said they had gone to Mr Ragil's flat with Ms Teo early Jun 30, 2007. However, they said she had left the unit sometime after 2.30am that same day.
The pair maintained that Ms Teo never returned to the flat after she left and that they did not see her again.
Ahmad Danial in particular gave two sets of false statements to the police on Jul 11 and Jul 25 in 2007.
In the first instance, he lied that Ms Teo had left the flat on her own. He claimed that she had been busy sending messages on her phone while they were at Mr Ragil's flat.
"Her ring tone was loud and I just asked whether she was sending the messages to her ex-boyfriend. She replied that it was some other guy. I then commented that she was a bitch by having so many boyfriends. She did not reply and then left Ragil's place," said Ahmad Danial in his statement.
In the second statement on Jul 25, 2007, Ahmad Danial claimed that Ms Teo was smoking in the living room at the time. He said he told her to reduce the volume or silence her ring tone as it was looping with incoming SMS ringing tones.
After he made his comment, Ahmad Danial said Ms Teo kept silent and stormed out with her white bag and laptop.
As there was insufficient evidence to suspect any foul play on the part of the two men, no further investigations were conducted against them in 2007.
The police recorded statements from colleagues, close friends and family members in relation to the case to find leads.
It was treated as a missing person case until 2020, with police consistently reviewing the case for 13 years. They conducted immigration, bank and EZ-Link card screenings, and made checks on hospitals, mortuaries and telco subscribers.
The police also constantly engaged Ms Teo's family to check for new information, monitored social media platforms and issued a police gazette for her.
In 2020, when the police conducted a fresh screening of Ms Teo's laptop, investigations revealed that Ahmad Danial had come into possession of the laptop, despite him claiming in 2007 that Ms Teo had left the flat with all her belongings.
They arrested Ahmad Danial, and he admitted to lying in 2007.
In June 2010, a partial human skull was found during excavation works at Punggol Track 24. The identity of the skull was unknown at the time.
After Ahmad Danial's arrest, screenings were conducted on skeletons found in the Punggol area. DNA testing revealed that the skull likely belonged to Ms Teo. No other remains were discovered despite efforts to dig around the area.
OFFENCES PREMEDITATED, KEPT FAMILY IN DARK: PROSECUTOR
Prosecutors asked for 27 months' jail for Ahmad Danial, pointing to the planning and premeditation involved in disposing of the body. It was burnt such that to this day, only the partial skull fragment remains, said Mr Yang Ziliang.Ahmad Danial fabricated evidence that ensured he was not arrested in 2007 for drug consumption offences, said Mr Yang. His actions also ensured that Mr Ragil was not arrested and remains at large, he added.
His act also resulted in the perversion of justice for a long period of 13 years, with Ms Teo's friends and family kept in the dark of her demise, said Mr Yang.
Ahmad Danial was defended by lawyers Shashi Nathan, Tania Chin and Laura Yeo from Withers KhattarWong.
Mr Nathan said his client was not the same man now. At the time, he was a young man and was "just trying to deflect from the drug offences".
He added that when the two men had found Ms Teo, she had already passed on and her body was cold to the touch.
In response, Mr Yang said there was no way of knowing if Ahmad Danial's claims are true.
He pointed to the mitigation plea, which stated that in the past 13 years, not a day had gone by without Ahmad Danial deeply regretting his conduct and wishing he had called the authorities.
The mitigation plea also stated that Ahmad Danial contemplated his surrender on numerous occasions.
"We say these claims ring hollow," said Mr Yang. "On Jun 30, 2007, he could have come clean, but instead he spent the whole day planning how to dispose of the body while it was concealed between two mattresses in Ragil's room."
He added that Ahmad Danial did not come clean in his statements.
"So we say it appears that he's just sorry he got caught instead of being sorry for the offences," said Mr Yang.
In sentencing, Principal District Judge Toh Han Li said the efforts by the two men were elaborate and their actions denied family members the chance to have a proper burial for Ms Teo.
The actions also ensured that Ahmad Danial and Mr Ragil were never arrested in 2007 for drug offences, said Judge Toh.
At the time, sentencing guidelines for drug offences indicated between six and 18 months' jail for first offenders, and this is relevant for the sentence which Ahmad Danial managed to avoid, he said.
As a result, Ms Teo's family and friends were kept in the dark for 13 years and unable to get closure.
Ahmad Danial will be mounting an appeal for the discharge not amounting to an acquittal for the murder charge to be changed to a discharge amounting to acquittal, his lawyers said.
