SINGAPORE — Discontinuous scratch marks on the wooden floor in the bedroom that commensurate with markings made by a chair being pushed away from the front of the toilet door by a person’s feet. Indentation marks on top of the door and the stretched yarn on a strap which are consistent with the scenario when a strap placed over the door has a weight pulling on it.

These were among the findings that a senior consultant forensic scientist made in her simulation experiments for a possible scene reconstruction, which tallied with evidence found at the scene where American researcher Shane Todd was found dead in an apparent suicide.

These findings were presented as evidence yesterday, on the third day of the Coroner’s Inquiry into Todd’s death.

Health Sciences Authority (HSA) forensic expert Lim Chin-Chin testified that she had designed a series of experiments, based on information provided by the investigation officer, to test out the hypothesis that Todd had hanged himself.

Ms Lim, Laboratory Director of the Forensic Chemistry and Physics Laboratory of the HSA’s Forensic Science Division, concluded that this scenario was “possible”: Todd first placed a noose he made at one end of the strap around his neck. He then stood on a chair on a folded towel in front of the bedroom toilet door. After which, he slung the other end of the strap — which had a series of knots to act as stoppers — over the toilet door. He then closed the door fully and pushed the chair off with his feet.

Ms Lim said that the effect of Todd’s weight on the door and the strap he was found hanging from tallied with the reconstruction where she used similar straps and subjects with a weight and height similar to that of Todd.

Her experimental observations included measurements of indentations made to the door and doorframe by the strap and the distance the chair would move when pushed by a person’s feet. She also analysed the stretching of the strap and the paint transferred from the door and doorframe onto the strap.

Ms Lim also observed creases made to the towel on which the chair stood after it was pushed off as well as when the chair was pulled away by police first-responders when they placed Todd’s body on the floor.

In all, Ms Lim conducted 37 trials of the scene reconstruction, which she shared with the inquiry through PowerPoint slides.

After Ms Lim’s testimony, Todd’s parents, who believe that he was murdered over research he had done while working for the Singapore Institute of Microelectronics, requested to visit the scene again. Their lawyers told TODAY that an application will be made on the request.

Assistant Superintendent Kristen Soong Yen Peng, from the Criminal Investigation Department’s Technology Crime Forensic Branch, also testified that a computer forensic analysis of Todd’s laptop found no evidence that the computer had been remotely accessed or hacked into.

An analysis of the user account also showed that the only account on the computer was password-protected and belonged to Todd.

There were no failed attempts to log on to the laptop. The last log-on was two days before Todd’s death, on June 22 last year.