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Monday, Nov 19, 2012
SINGAPORE - A series of partial fingerprints. Using these, analyse the prints of nearly 200 construction workers and locate the culprit.
That was the job for Senior Station Inspector (SSI) Lee Mei Fun, 49, officer-in-charge at the Fingerprint Section, Criminal Records Office, in December 2007.
And she got the criminal quickly.
SSI Lee was one of 258 Home Team officers who were given awards at the Ministry of Home Affairs Investiture Ceremony yesterday.
She received an Efficiency Medal, given to those with superior performance and dedication to their work.
In December 2007, the naked body of Indonesian maid Yulia Afriyanti, 25, had been found in a cardboard box at a condominium construction site in Queensway.
SSI Lee's team of eight fingerprint specialists had their suspect in less than two hours - Kamrul Hasan Abdul Quddus, 35, Miss Yulia's lover. He was convicted of her murder in January 2010 and sentenced to hang.
The case remains memorable for SSI Lee, who joined the Singapore Police Force in 1981 and has been a fingerprint specialist for 15 years.
Working with a magnifying glass in bright light, she identifies people - murderers, burglars, accident victims - by their fingerprints.
"There's a sense of achievement in helping a victim find the suspect...It's like solving a puzzle. I would do this as long as my eyes can see," said SSI Lee.
In January 2005, she was deployed to Phuket, Thailand, after the tsunami, and worked with foreign fingerprint experts on the Interpol Team.
She took fingerprints of the few thousand bodies at a temporary morgue there.
"When I unzipped the body bags, maggots would fall out," she said, adding that prints of 10 fingers and the palm were taken.
Post-mortem fingerprints were compared with ante-mortem - pre-death - information from the next of kin, she said.
Said SSI Lee, who also helped with victim identification in quake-hit Christchurch, New Zealand, last year: "You feel sad about touching a body...But you're also mentally prepared for it."
In addition to the 15 Commendation, 89 Efficiency and 154 Long Service Medals conferred, a Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) officer, Lieutenant-Colonel David Chow Tai Wei, 42, received the SCDF Overseas Service Medal.
He served in three flood missions: The Philippines in 2009, Pakistan in 2010 and Thailand last year.
"Across all cultures, people have proven to be quite resilient. They may have lost their livelihood, but they're always quick to adjust," he said.
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