Legless body found in bloody suitcase at Syed Alwi Road

SINGAPORE — The chilling discovery of a legless body stuffed in a bloodied luggage bag brought traffic along Syed Alwi Road to a standstill on Wednesday evening (June 11).

The police said they received a call at 6.04pm and found the dismembered body — understood to be male — in a luggage bag by the road. The case has been classified as unnatural death.

An eyewitness who alerted the police to the grisly find told TODAY he saw a man in his 70s being taken away in a police car, but this could not be confirmed.

Cleaner Woo Shin Kwong, 57, said he was heading towards the train station after work when he saw the old man, dressed in a short-sleeved shirt and shorts, trying to heave the luggage onto a shopping trolley with the help of two Indian men. Mr Woo said he went towards them, intending to help, but was shocked to see bloodstains on the hands of the old man and the duo.

He asked the old man what was inside and was stunned by the reply. “He said in Hokkien, ‘It’s a dead body,’” Mr Woo told TODAY.

He added that as he was calling the police, the old man started walking away slowly. But Mr Woo gave chase and kept an eye on him until the police arrived.

“I saw bloodstains on the road and on the luggage,” Mr Woo said in Mandarin. “There were also clothes near the luggage.”

Fruit seller Lin Kok You, whose stall was three shops away from the horrific discovery, told Channel NewsAsia that the two Indian men who had helped the old man later went to his shop asking to wash their blood-stained hands.

The 56-year-old said that at about 5pm, a rag-and-bone man had visited his shop and said there was a dead body outside. Mr Lin said he went to take a look and saw the luggage on the road, with blood leaking out.

For more than four hours last night, Criminal Investigation Department officers swarmed the area, collecting evidence in the wide cordon the police had set up. Curious onlookers continued streaming towards the area throughout the night, with many craning their necks to catch a glimpse of the scene. Others whipped out their mobile phones to try to snap pictures of the luggage.

Social media and online forums were abuzz with discussions about the gruesome discovery. A video showing two police officers opening the luggage was uploaded onto YouTube soon after the news broke.

Police investigations are ongoing.