Normal workday ends in death

Usual drive home for woman turns tragic when drunk motorist crashes his car into hers, alights and shoots her dead in cold blood

Crimes that shook the nation

ACCOUNTANT Linda Lee Good Yew was on her usual drive home from Jalan Bukit Petaling near Wisma Putra in Kuala Lumpur on Aug 22, 2000 when her journey was disrupted by a drunk motorist who drove his car against traffic.

Moments later, the driver lost control of his car and smashed it into Lee’s vehicle.

Shocked and shaken by the incident, she honked at the driver. Never could she have imagined what would follow next.

Her life took a tragic turn when the man stepped out with a pistol in his hand, aimed it at her and fired a shot.

The bullet went through the windscreen of Lee’s car and hit the 52-year-old mother of two in the chest, seriously wounding her.

The gunman did not stop there. Drunk and delirious, he went on a rampage, randomly firing his pistol at other vehicles.

On seeing this, panicked motorists scrambled out of their vehicles and scurried to safety as the gunman walked along the road opening fire until he ran out of ammunition.

Police, who were alerted to the incident, rushed to the scene and after a brief stand-off, the gunman was apprehended.

Paramedics who arrived at the scene wheeled Lee into an ambulance, but she succumbed to her injury before arriving at the hospital.

The identity of the gunman was soon revealed and Malaysians were astonished.

He was Kenneth Lee Fook Mun @ Omar Iskandar Lee Abdullah, the grandson of Tun Sir Henry Lee Hau Shik, better known as Tun H.S. Lee, then Malaya’s first finance minister and one of its founding fathers.

It was found that Kenneth had a licence to carry the Walther pistol he had in his possession.

After police concluded investigations, Kenneth, then aged 49, was charged with Lee’s murder at the Kuala Lumpur High Court eight days after the incident.

At the trial, Kenneth’s lawyers argued the accused, who was a diabetic, suffered a hypoglycemic episode at the time of the event, which led to his erratic behaviour.

Later, the murder charge was amended to involuntary manslaughter and in July 2003, Kenneth was sentenced to eight years’ jail by the High Court after it ruled that murder charges against the accused would not stand.

Kenneth, who appeared relieved by the sentence, that spared him the death sentence, apologised to Lee’s family for causing her death.

However, two years later in March 2005 following an appeal by the prosecution against the sentence, Kenneth was sentenced to death by the Court of Appeal, who found the High Court had erred in its verdict. The following year, the Federal Court upheld the death penalty.

The sentence brought closure and justice for Lee’s family, but two years later, they were again left in dismay.

While on death row, Kenneth sought a royal pardon and in January 2008, he was granted clemency by the Yang di-Pertuan Agong.