HE WAS
mischievous and loved to play by himself, often pretending to be
the monkey god from the fabled Journey To The West.
But on Saturday, his playful nature might have ended up costing him
his life.
That afternoon, Yuen Kai Lek, 15, a special needs student, was
found unconscious in his bedroom with one end of a nylon rope tied
around his neck.
The other end was tied to a window grille in his bedroom. He was
pronounced dead by paramedics shortly after.
When The New Paper visited the Yuen family's three-room HDB flat at
Ang Mo Kio last evening, more than five relatives were inside with
the grieving family. Kai Lek's parents looked tired, like they had
been crying.
The family collected his body from the mortuary yesterday morning
and cremated him in the afternoon.
While Kai Lek's elder brother, Kai Fai, 17, and his father declined
to go to the door and speak with us, his mother, Madam Toh Kim
Hiok, 57, told The New Paper yesterday that she had been at work
when she received a call from Kai Fai.
Kai Fai, who works part-time, had wanted to enter the bedroom, but
he found the bedroom door locked. He shouted out to his younger
brother, but could not get a response.
The teen then used a spare key to open the door, only to see a
shocking sight.
His brother's limp body was on the bed by the window, his head held
up by one end of a nylon rope tied around the neck.
He was dressed, but his face was already blackish by then, said
Madam Toh in Mandarin.
The shop assistant rushed home, but it was too late. Her son was
already dead.
Madam Toh said that when she left the family's flat at 1.45pm on
Saturday, Kai Lek, who had Down syndrome, was happily playing with
his Game Boy in his room.
Her husband, vegetable stall assistant Yuen Kok Chee, 63, was in
the living room at that time with Kai Fai.
Kai Lek's bedroom door was ajar.
Said Madam Toh: "But it's not unusual for him to lock the room door
later. He often locks it when he plays by himself inside. Nothing
happened in the past when he locked his door.
"Who would have thought he would have played until this happened?
Perhaps it was destined," she added with a heavy sigh.
She said: "We've kept that nylon rope for more than 10 years. It
was always in the storeroom; I don't know when he took it.
"He must have seen and taken it without us knowing."
She said that while it was the first time he had played with that
nylon rope, it was not the first time he played with rope.
"There was another time he played with a rope and tied his hands
together with it," she said.
Earlier reports had said that Kai Lek was allegedly mimicking a
magician who freed himself after being tied with rope.
But Madam Toh dismissed the suggestion.
She said: "He does not watch magic shows. He likes to watch only
his Journey To The West on DVD."
She recalled fondly: "He always liked to play. He loved watching
the Cantonese series Journey To The West and would pretend that he
was the monk or the monkey god.
"Sometimes, he would eat a banana and scratch his head while
prancing around, acting like the monkey god."
Huge fan
Kai Lek was such a huge fan of the Chinese classic that he watched
the series "more than 10 times".
Said his mother: "He would watch it over and over again. When the
series ends, he would start from the beginning. He never got sick
of it."
The teenager watched the series so often that he picked up
Cantonese from there.
Kai Lek attended Fernvale Gardens School, a special education
school set up by the Movement for the Intellectually Disabled of
Singapore.
He did well in his school and was to have studied there for four
more years until he turned 18, said Madam Toh.
"He was very obedient. In school, his teachers taught him to do
simple household chores like sweep the floor.
"Although he couldn't do it very well, he tried to help me at
home," she said.
She added: "He would help me with little things. Sometimes, he
would go downstairs to help us buy newspapers.
"He could also buy soya milk for himself after his teachers taught
him how to buy things."
Kai Lek enjoyed simple hawker fare like chicken rice and duck
rice.
Every Sunday, he would pester his mother to take him to a nearby
coffee shop to have nasi lemak.
"He could eat those three dishes every day," Madam Toh said with a
fond smile.
A neighbour, who declined to be named, said that Kai Lek was a
jovial boy who was very polite.
"He always greeted me 'Aunty' when he saw me.
"Even though you could tell he's not a normal child, you could
still have a normal conversation with him," she said in
Mandarin.
Kai Lek also loved to sing karaoke and her family got used to
hearing him sing every afternoon without fail.
"About 2 or 3pm, he would start singing. He would sing for about
two hours. Sometimes, his father sang with him," said the
neighbour.
She added: "Although we could not really make out the words he
sang, he could sing in English, Mandarin and even Cantonese.
"His parents doted on him too, taking him with them whenever they
went shopping."
When contacted, a police spokesman said that police received a call
on Saturday at 3.50pm, requesting for police's assistance at a unit
at Block 417, Ang Mo Kio Avenue 10.
Upon police's arrival, Kai Lek's body was found motionless at the
unit.
The New Paper understands that when Kai Fai found his brother
unconscious, he cut the rope with their father's help to bring Kai
Lek to the floor.
But it was too late.
Paramedics pronounced him dead at 4.05pm.
The police have classified the death as unnatural death and
investigations are ongoing.
Source: http://forums.vr-zone.com/newsroom/1002431-news-teen-found-dead-locked-bedroom-rope-around-neck.html
This is proof that feeble-minded vermin must not exist. They
have destroyed my existence by just being in existence in the first
place. They must be exterminated, wiped clean from this planet.
