A 36-year-old man received a four-year, two-month prison sentence after trying to kill his 77-year-old adoptive mother to inherit her property.
Yong Chun Hong pleaded guilty on April 16, 2025, at the State Courts to knowingly committing an act that endangered another person’s life.
The judge gave no sympathy when delivering the sentence.
His adoptive mother attended the hearing with family. She told reporters she hopes her son will change after prison and not repeat his actions. If he doesn’t reform, she said they cannot live together and she would have to leave him.
Court records show Yong worked part-time collecting charity donations.
The victim, Huang Shunhua, 78, works as a freelance tailor and part-time cleaner.
Huang and her husband adopted Yong in 1991 when he was two years old. The couple had no other children.
At the time of the incident, Yong lived with Huang in an HDB flat at Block 412 Serangoon Central registered in her name.
In August 2023, Yong’s adoptive father died, leaving him $45,000.
From September 2023, Yong visited Club Axis nightclub with friends and quickly accumulated $30,000 in gambling debts.
Unable to repay his debts, Yong used his mother’s personal information as collateral to borrow $4,500 from loan sharks.
When Huang discovered this, she confronted him. Yong demanded she sell the flat to help clear his debts, but she refused.
This led Yong to think that if his adoptive mother died, he could become the sole heir to the flat and escape his debts.
He made several online searches, including “would overdosing on medication cause death?”, “CPF withdrawals”, and information about hanging oneself at home in Singapore.
On January 16, 2024, between 10:00 PM and 11:00 PM, as Huang was preparing to sleep, Yong pressed a pillow over her face attempting to suffocate her.
Huang pushed the pillow away and asked if he was trying to kill her. Yong apologized and cried.
Huang stayed awake all night fearing another attack while Yong sat by her bedside until morning.
The next day, Huang called her cousin’s daughter for help. With her relative, she went to a neighborhood clinic where the doctor alerted police after learning about Yong’s actions.
