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Lim Peng Tiong pleaded guilty on Feb 9 to a charge of culpable homicide not amounting to murder for causing the woman's death.

SummaryA 19-year-old, Ms Huang Baoying, died from severe malnutrition and blunt force trauma after two months of torture.Lim Peng Tiong, 66, pleaded guilty to culpable homicide for Ms Huang's death, carrying out abuse on the Herbalife coach's alleged instructions.Herbalife coach Chee Mei Wan and victim's brother Huang Bocan face murder charges, allegedly torturing her over "bad habits" affecting product sales.AI generated

Published Feb 09, 2026, 04:25 PM

Updated Feb 10, 2026, 12:26 AM

SINGAPORE – A 19-year-old woman was starved and tortured for more than two months by a man she had met through a club selling nutritional products in acts which allegedly also involved her older brother and his married girlfriend, the High Court heard on Feb 9.

Ms Huang Baoying died on May 5, 2021, from the final acts of abuse carried out on her in a flat at Block 602 Clementi West Street 1

In her last hours, she was repeatedly beaten with a wooden stick, forced to sit upright with her hands tied and raised above her head, had salt rubbed into an open wound on her leg, and was drenched under a running tap for 15 minutes.

The teenager was left on a mattress in the living room, where she died from a combination of severe malnutrition, sepsis and extensive blunt force trauma.

She weighed only 27.6kg at her autopsy, having lost 43 per cent of her body weight over 11 months from June 2020, when her weight was last recorded as 48.8kg.

On Feb 9, Lim Peng Tiong, a member of the multi-level marketing (MLM) club selling Herbalife products, pleaded guilty to an amended charge of culpable homicide not amounting to murder for causing her death.

Among other things, the 66-year-old, who owned the Clementi flat, admitted that he beat the victim about 240 times with a wooden stick on May 1, 2021, allegedly on the instructions of their MLM coach, Chee Mei Wan.

Prosecutors said Ms Huang was “tortured for no other reason than some twisted project to purportedly ‘improve’ her behaviour”.

Chee had introduced a system of fines to “correct” the bad habits of club members that would negatively affect the marketing and sale of products, which in turn would affect the commission she earned.

The 46-year-old, who was married at the time, was in a romantic relationship with Ms Huang’s brother, Huang Bocan, 34.

The disciplinary regime escalated into full-blown torture and physical abuse for Ms Huang.

The teenager was punished the most because Chee and Ms Huang’s brother thought she lacked discipline and motivation, and performed poorly in product sales.

Between Feb 16, 2021, and May 4, 2021, Ms Huang was deprived of food, confined in the toilet for prolonged periods, and brutally beaten despite being weak and injured.

Deputy Public Prosecutor Timotheus Koh argued that Lim should be jailed for 20 years for his role in the abuse.

But he added that while Lim actively endorsed the abuse, participated in it, and provided the environment for it to go on undetected, he was allegedly not as culpable as Chee and Huang Bocan.

Lim’s lawyer, Ms Kate Loo, sought a jail term of 11 years.

She said that her client was also subjected to the punishment regime, did not decide on the punishment to inflict, and was “brainwashed” by his accomplices.

The case will be heard again on March 2 for further submissions.

Both Chee and Huang Bocan are facing murder charges, and their cases are still pending in court.

The trio were originally charged with voluntarily causing grievous hurt to the teenager with a wooden pole.

Huang Bocan was the first to be charged on May 6, 2021,

Huang Bocan was the first to be charged over his sister Huang Baoying’s death – on May 6, 2021, the day after her body was found.

Chee and Lim were charged on May 12 that year.

The charges were upgraded to that of murder on June 29, 2021

On Feb 9, DPP Jordy Kay, a member of the prosecution team, described to the court the punishment system which Chee allegedly came up with.

Chee owned a company selling Herbalife products, which she called a club, where clients pay a fee to join as members to get discounts on products.

These members could sell products to their own clients.

Ms Huang was about 16 to 17 years old when she and her brother joined the club in 2018.

The siblings had left home in July 2020 after falling out with their parents over their refusal to continue spending as much as $2,000 a month on the products sold by their children.

The siblings went to live with Lim, and Chee joined them a few weeks later following a dispute with her husband.

According to Lim, in October 2020, Chee introduced a system of fines to correct his bad habits, which she believed had affected sales.

After a month, Chee and Huang Bocan thought that the fines were not working, so they introduced a system where those who made mistakes had to perform exercises such as squats or hold a stress position with their legs bent and their backs against a wall.

Chee was the only one who was exempted from the fines and exercises. But she and Huang Bocan allegedly beat Lim and Ms Huang when they did not meet expectations.

A WhatsApp chat group was created in February 2021 to monitor Ms Huang and report on her mistakes.

In January 2021, Ms Huang was limited to one meal a day, purportedly to teach her about hunger and being grateful for her food.

From the next month, she was deprived of food as a form of punishment. From April 2021 onwards, she was deprived of food for days and would be allowed only to drink water.

Between January and February 2021, Ms Huang was forced out of the flat several times as punishment. One time, before chasing her out, her brother cut her hair to humiliate her.

On another occasion, a passer-by took pity on her and provided her with a blanket and a straw mat to sleep on. This allegedly prompted Chee to beat her for behaving like a beggar.

Ms Huang was beaten on other occasions, with the number of blows progressively increasing to a staggering 240 in a single incident.

One of the beatings resulted in a wound on her calf that did not heal properly.

In April 2021, the four attended a church service, where Ms Huang dozed off. After they returned to the flat, she was slapped about 130 times in total by Lim and allegedly her brother.

From February to May 2021, the victim was confined in a toilet under the guise of giving her a quiet place to reflect on her “mistakes”.

She slept and took her meals in the toilet, and was chained to the railing beside the toilet bowl.

On top of the beatings and food deprivation, she was also forced to do intense physical exercises including squats.

On the night of May 4, 2021, Chee allegedly wanted to punish her for lying about whether she had done her squats.

When Ms Huang remained quiet during the beating, Chee and Huang Bocan saw this as defiance.

The trio allegedly tried several ways to get a reaction out of her, including poking her with a stick and holding her head in a basin of iced water. They also tied her hands with rope, pulled her into a sitting position, and took turns to stand on her legs to get her to cry.

Salt was poured on the wound on her calf, and she was taken to the toilet and drenched under a tap.

Her brother then changed her out of her wet clothes and left her on the mattress.

Some time past midnight on May 5, the trio tried to wake her, but to no avail. They discussed whether they should take her to the hospital or call for an ambulance, and decided to lie to the authorities.

Huang Bocan allegedly deleted photographs and videos from his phone that showed the bruises on Ms Huang’s legs and audio recordings from his phones of the trio scolding her.

The trio also deleted the group chat they had used to report on her mistakes.

Huang Bocan called for an ambulance at about 6am and told the operator that his sister was unconscious.

Ms Huang was pronounced dead at the scene by paramedics, who reported the case to the police after they saw the bruises on her body.

Lim was arrested on May 11 and has been in custody since.

Selina Lum is senior law correspondent at The Straits Times.

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