Did debts drive him to his death?
By Esther Ng, TODAY | Posted: 11 November 2009 0640 hrs

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SINGAPORE: If Mr Ng Chee Kiang had a debt problem, it did not manifest in very visible ways leading up to his alleged suicide and murder of his two young children on Saturday.

While neighbours had once spotted the "O$P$" loanshark calling card scribbled on the wall beside his Ang Mo Kio flat three months ago, as MediaCorp had reported, the family did not have any history of service and conservancy charges arrears.

"From my experience, S&CC arrears are usually the first signs of any financial trouble," Ang Mo Kio-Yio Chu Kang Town Council chairman Inderjit Singh told MediaCorp.

But six years ago, Mr Ng filed for bankruptcy, Chinese-language daily Lianhe Wanbao reported on Tuesday, citing checks it had made.

The daily said that it was credit card bills - rather than gambling, as some newspapers have speculated - that was behind recent money problems.

Relatives whom MediaCorp spoke to at Mr Ng's wake were fiercely protective of his wife's privacy.

Asked what might have led Mr Ng to set fire to his flat with his son, 5, and daughter, 3, before jumping to his death, one male relative said: "You should ask the deceased, all the answers are with him. What I know is from the media."

When MediaCorp approached Mr Ng's wife, she was carrying some of her husband's clothes out of their burnt flat, and declined to comment. The petite woman continued to remain calm later at her husband's wake at the void deck below. - TODAY