Johore Road transvestite murder information

Lim Yeow Chuan
Born	Lim Yeow Chuan c. 1960 Pontian District, Johor, Malaysia
Died	27 October 1990 (aged 30) Johore Road, Bugis, Singapore
Cause of death	Two fatal knife wounds to the abdomen
Nationality	Malaysian
Other names	Susan
Education	Secondary school education in Malaysia
Occupation(s)	Fashion designer (former) Transvestite
Known for	Murder victim

On 27 October 1990, a thirty-year-old Malaysian named Lim Yeow Chuan (林耀全 Lín Yàoquán), who was a transvestite, was found dead at Johore Road within Bugis, where it was a hotspot for prostitution of transvestites prior to its demolition in the 1990s. According to his colleagues, Lim was last seen with two young Indian men before he was discovered dead. In January 1991, two suspects - consisting of one Malaysian and one Singaporean - were arrested and charged with his murder. Later, while the Singaporean suspect Kuppiah s/o Saravanan was sentenced to five years' jail and twelve strokes of the cane for robbery, the Malaysian suspect Soosay a/l Sinnappen remained facing a murder charge.

It was revealed that both Soosay and Kuppiah robbed Lim due to Lim having stolen both the money and a gold chain from their friend, who was Lim's former customer, and they wanted to help the friend to get the chain back, resulting in an altercation between the men and Lim, who used a knife to threaten and attack them, which sparked into a fight that took Lim's life. Soosay, who argued that he acted in self-defence and killed Lim during a sudden fight, was sentenced to death by the trial court for murder in November 1992. However, upon his appeal, Soosay's claims of causing Lim's death during a sudden fight were accepted by the Court of Appeal, which resulted in Soosay's sentence being reduced to nine years' imprisonment for manslaughter in August 1993.