Debt can make people do some desperate things. I know there have been plenty of times in my life where I felt money issues had gotten so bad, the only way out of them was something drastic. Although I mean “overhaul your lifestyle” kind of drastic, others turn to much, much worse, including crime and illicit activities. In 2001, Anthony Ler Wee Teang took about the most drastic measures one could to alleviate his debt after he and his wife split.
Ler’s wife Annie Leong Wai Muen left him in 1999.
Reportedly, he was in a mountain of debt and facing the loss of his home and custody of his daughter. As a way to end his plight, Ler cooked up a devious scheme: He used a teenager to murder his estranged wife, according to The Straits Times. In a Singapore High Court judgment reviewed by People, Ler convinced a 15-year-old boy to carry out the act for him and taught him exactly how to do it, promising him $100,000 for completing the task.
He had befriended the boy and some other teens years prior and began regularly meeting with them at McDonald’s, where he would plot killing his wife. It was there that the teen agreed to help him carry out his murder plot in exchange for the six-figure sum.
The details surrounding her murder were harrowing to say the least.
Leong reportedly met Ler downstairs in her parent’s apartment building just before midnight on May 14, 2001, to have him sign some paperwork regarding the apartment they shared. Upon realizing they didn’t have a pen, Leong left her then 4-year-old daughter with Ler and headed upstairs to retrieve one, People shared. After stepping out of the elevator she was attacked from behind, the teen stabbed her in the chest and slashed her neck.
The young woman was able to stagger back to her mother’s apartment before collapsing. She died from severe bleeding at about 1 a.m. May 15, after being taken to Tan Tock Seng Hospital.
Ler attended Leong’s wake and gave a tearful statement beside her coffin expressing grief and regret to reporters, according to The Straits Times.
“The expression of shock, the seeming concern for the dying Annie and the tears at the funeral were nothing more than rehearsed acts performed by an accomplished actor,” the judge wrote in the ruling.
Ler and the teen were arrested four days after her death.
The teen confessed that Ler coached him on everything from how to properly stab someone to how to get rid of evidence. Ironically, he wasn’t incredibly good at his own advice. Authorities found a torn piece of newspaper the knife was wrapped in and connected it to a paper that was in Ler’s apartment.
The teen escaped the death penalty because of his age but was detained indefinitely. Ler was officially convicted of abetting a murder and sentenced to death. He was executed by hanging in Singapore in 2002.
