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.
He had allegedly committed the offences with an accomplice, Mr Ragil Putra Setia Sukmarahjana, who is 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.
Ms Teo, who would have been 34 this year, was reported missing on Jul 3, 2007 by her mother.
The court heard that Ms Teo was a student at La Salle College of Fine Arts at the time, along with Mr Ragil, who was 18 at the time.
Ahmad was then a 22-year-old graphic designer. Ms Teo’s mother lodged a police report on Jul 3, 2007, 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 and Mr Ragil. However, when questioned, Ahmad and Mr Ragil lied to the police that Ms Teo had left the unit to meet someone at East Coast Park.
Ahmad 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.
The trio consumed ecstasy inside the flat. After 6am, Ms Teo died due to unknown circumstances.
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.
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.
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.
However, after Ahmad was arrested in December 2020, 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.
There was no evidence at the time to link Ahmad Danial or Mr Ragil to Ms Teo’s disappearance, so it was classified as a missing persons case, with a police gazette issued to find her.
The case went cold until 2020 when the case was referred to the Criminal Investigation Department as part of police processes for long-standing unsolved missing person cases.
Fresh leads were found when investigators traced the belongings believed to be in Ms Teo’s possession when she was reported missing.
Police linked one of her belongings to Ahmad Danial.
Prosecutors asked for 27 months’ jail for Ahmad Danial.