A Brief Case

How did a prostitute from a floating brothel end up as one of the most notorious, successful pirates in history?   Ching Shih was the leader of the Pirate Confederation that dominated the South China Seas - a behemoth that waged war against the Qing dynasty, the East India Company, and even the Portuguese empire. She ruled as a pirate queen for almost ten years...   Website:  https://abriefcasepod...

  Haunted bathrooms, ghostly roommates and hidden altars - all part of the Singapore educational experience... In this week's special episode, we talk with Klinsen from "But Then How?" podcast about the scariest schools in Singapore...  What do you think the scariest schools in Singapore are...?   Website:  https://abriefcasepodcast.com/   Instagram:  @abriefcasepodcast But Then How Podcast:  Inst...

Six guards patrol the complex. To get into the apartment, there's three locked doors - a gate, a metal grill and a wooden door. Once you're in, there's a lock on the bedroom door.  It was May 2008. Who had made it into the apartment, and into 13-year-old Aarushi Talwar's bedroom? Who had bludgeoned her, then slit her throat? Silently, while her parents slept in the next bedroom? Fingers pointed at...

Gang Yuan was a multi-millionaire - it's alleged that he was worth about 50 million dollars. Did he feel like he could do anything? Get away with anything?  It's believed that he had five children with five different mothers. Some reports say that he had almost a hundred different girlfriends.  But when it came to marriage, was he looking a little closer to home? And what could have triggered such...

It was April 1976. Michael Cully was on his deathbed, he was suffering from heart failure. His son, Charles, had rushed from Singapore to Melbourne to see his father one last time.  What was the dying man's last wish? He wanted Charles to get rid of the body. The dead body of his wife, Charles' mother. He had killed her in a suite in the Hilton hotel. Best if he could dump it in the ocean, if not...

It was 1st July 2018. The Chundawat family, also known as the Bhatia family by neighbours, lived in the Burrari district in Delhi, India. On that day, all eleven members of the family were found dead. Ten were hanging in the courtyard - their feet almost grazing the floor. Eyes covered, hands bound. One in the bedroom - the grandmother, strangled to death. Who could have done this?  What could hav...

Lydia was daddy’s girl. She was the apple of his eye, the light of his life. Pablo Cabading would do anything and everything to keep her close.  But what happens when she meets the handsome Leonardo Quitangon? She was falling in love, getting married, and soon she wouldn’t be daddy’s girl anymore…    What would Pablo do to keep her with him…?    Would she better dead, if not daddy’s…? Website:  ht...

It was 6:25AM, 6th Jan 1979. Tan Kuen Chai and his wife, Mei Ying, were about to leave for work.  In less than four hours, all four of their children - their three sons and one daughter - would be dead.  They would return home to the tragic sight of their children, brutally slashed, covered in blood, piled on top of each other. This remains one of the most horrific, inhuman killings in Singapore h...

Phoolan Devi always gets her revenge.  When she was eleven, Phoolan had been married off to a man nearly three times her age. He was abusive and she ran away, again and again. She would eventually get her revenge - dragging him out of his home, stabbing him, and leaving him for dead.  When her gang of bandits turned on her, she was abducted. Brought to a village, raped, beaten, humiliated. After e...

Sada Abe wanted a memento of their time together, a souvenir of sorts. She couldn't just drag his body around, that would be impractical. Even if she decapitated him, his head was just a tad inconvenient to carry around. Sada considered the dead man's body again. Being with Kichizō Ishida had brought her great pleasure and her fondest memories were when they were making love. With that in mind, sh...

Li Hao had a plan. He didn't just want to kidnap women to use them, that would be too mundane. He had ambition.  He was going to kidnap women, trap them, then he would sell them, he was going to be their pimp. That wasn't enough, he wasn't just going to rape them, he was going to make porn to sell on the internet. He would run his online sex empire from a secret, filthy, disgusting dungeon. It was...

Barings bank was established in 1762. It was the United Kingdom's oldest merchant bank and at one point, was called 'the sixth great European power. Nick Leeson was a wunderkind. Everything he touched, everything he traded turned to gold. He didn't even pass his Math A'levels, yet he seemed to have an instinctive grasp of the market. He was eventually placed in charge of the Singapore branch of th...

They always suspect the husband... Anthony Ler knew this, he couldn't kill her himself. He needed someone to commit the murder for him. But he wasn't a criminal, he didn't have criminal friends, where was he going to get a hitman?  In 2001, Anthony Ler convinced a 15-year-old boy to commit the crime... Website:  https://abriefcasepodcast.com/   Instagram:  @abriefcasepodcast Hosted on Acast. See a...

Was Anthony Ler Singapore's worst husband?  When his wife was pregnant, he cheated on her. Rather than get a normal job to support his family, he opened different businesses - a graphic design studio, a modelling agency, a magazine... When Annie had enough, when she decided that she was going to divorce him, Anthony hired a hitman... Website:  https://abriefcasepodcast.com/   Instagram:  @abriefca...

It was 15th November 1977. Megumi Yokota was walking home from school in a peaceful Japanese seaside town in the Niigata Prefecture. Her home was just seven minutes away, but she would never arrive. Instead, she would be kidnapped by two spies, shut in a dark room for hours, then forced to live in North Korea for the rest of her life. Megumi would never see her family again...  Website:  https://a...

It was once a moving lake, a geographical phenomenon. Then, a nuclear test site, a camel reserve, and an archeological research site.  But more than anything, the Lop Nur is an area in China known for it's mysterious disappearances. It's sometimes called 'Asia's Devil Triangle' or 'The Sea of Death'. On 17th June 1980, experienced Chinese scientist and explorer, Peng Jia Mu went on an expedition i...

Imagine you're a Hong Kong policeman in 1999, you're in a shabby apartment. It's decorated in Hello Kitty. There's Hello Kitty everywhere, from the utensils to the walls, there's plushies scattered all over the apartment.  You tear open an extra-large mermaid hello kitty, the one the 13-year-old girl wouldn't stop looking at. What're you expecting to find? Definitely not the skull of 23-year-old F...

Boonpeng Heep Lek was a monk.  But he was not humble, he was not religious, he was not kind.  Boonpeng was a gambler, a womanizer, and possibly Thailand's first serial killer (though it was never proven). Though they did find - one body, in an iron chest, then another... Were there more...? Website:  https://abriefcasepodcast.com/   Instagram:  @abriefcasepodcast Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/pri...

The body floated in Whampoa River, near McNair road. It was missing a head and hands. It was 12th December 2013, the decapitated body of Jasvinder Kaur had been found floating in the river. The 33-year-old Indian national had only been in Singapore for a few months.  The prime suspect? Who could be capable of such a cruel act?  None other than her husband, 35-year-old  Hasvinder Singh... Website: ...

They said that one by one, the spirits emerged. A soldier, a snake, and the scariest one of all, the devil himself - Lucifer. They said that she slithered on the ground, that she was violent, that she hurled her fists and obscenities in the church... But according to her, they told her she was possessed. She said they wouldn't let her out of the room. She said that they were insistent on exorcisin...

During Hungry Ghost Month, the gates of hell open, releasing all. Not just ancestors and lost friends but the vengeful and disturbed as well. Prepare yourself for the supernatural and scary. Michelle and I can't wait to share our ghost stories with you. So listen, and enjoy yourself. Can you feel the hair on your arms and the back of your neck stand? But don't forget. If you're listening, they're...

Adrian Lim was known as a spiritual medium, he spent years learning and practicing black magic. Adrian manipulated women with his reputation has a holy man, as a spiritual guru. He would scam them for sex and money. He would marry them as his "Holy Wives" in a caricature of a wedding ceremony.   After he was accused of rape by one of his victims, Adrian was angry. He would have his revenge. On 24t...

Adrian Lim cemented his position in Singapore's dark history with his horrific crimes.  On 24th January 1981, with the assistance of his two "Holy Wives", he raped and murdered nine-year-old Agnes Ng. Not satisfied, he also brutally killed ten-year-old Ghazali bin Marzuki almost two weeks later. Why did he do this?  It was all part of a murderous ritual. You see, Adrian was also a spiritual medium...

It was a triple homicide in the gated community of BF Homes, Paranaque, Philippines.  On 30th June 1991, 49-year-old Estralita Vizcone, 19-year-old Maria Carmela Vizconde, and 6-year-old Jennifer Vizconde were brutally murdered in their own home. In total, the family suffered about 49 stab wounds, their house was drenched in blood. Carmela had also been raped.  The prime suspect?  Hubert Webb, the...

It was 9th October 1947, Mat Taram bin Sa'al had suddenly snapped.  On a train to Kuala Lumpur, he stood up, leaving his family. Then he strode to the dining carriage and started attacking passengers with a four-inch pocket knife.    When the train stopped, he continued leaving a trail of bodies through Malaysia. He killed 9 people and injured even more... Website:  https://abriefcasepodcast.com/...