It is a sad but true fact that death can come to anyone at any time, sometimes in the most unexpected ways. Often, these sudden deaths have little to no explanation, intriguing investigators and sleuths years – even decades – later.

The 1972 Queenstown shooting in Singapore is one such mystery – an incident that left tongues wagging in Malaysia and the republic some 50 years ago.

The victim was a 22-year-old Malaysian seamstress named Chan Chee Chan, whose family lived in Kluang, Johor. Chan had moved to Singapore in 1970 to take up a job there and, by all accounts, was an ordinary citizen with a steady romantic relationship and no known issues.

This makes the events of Sept 18, 1972 all the more mysterious, as she would encounter her untimely death that day.

In the afternoon, Chan was walking with her 19-year-old sister Kim Moy in the Queenstown area, close to the now-demolished Queen’s Circus roundabout. They had just spent the past few hours at a shopping mall and were on their way to Chan’s Tanglin Halt flat.

Out of the blue, the older Chan let out a scream and crumpled to the ground. To her sister’s horror, blood started to pool beneath her.

The resultant chaos and commotion drew the attention of a passing patrol car. Not long after, Chan was rushed to the Singapore General Hospital in an ambulance.

Doctors initially assumed she had been stabbed, but an x-ray revealed the wound in her chest was, in fact, from a gunshot. The bullet had penetrated her upper left chest and torn through her heart, before ricocheting off one of her ribs.

Allegations were later made that the policemen at the scene had not examined Chan’s injury as it had been close to her breast.

Despite the doctors’ best efforts, they were unable to save Chan, who passed away after 11 hours without having gained consciousness. An autopsy found the bullet to be a .22 (5.56mm) calibre round.

Chan’s family was subsequently informed, and her bereaved mother was allowed to take the body back to Kluang for burial. But while Chan was laid to rest, many questions remained: who had shot her, and why?

Rumours and speculation

The incident dominated local Singaporean newspapers for days afterwards, as folks speculated about the mysterious circumstances.

Could the killing have been completely at random? Fears arose that a gunman was on the loose, and a similar incident could recur if he was not apprehended.

The police went on the hunt, interviewing hundreds of residents on what they had heard or seen on the day of the shooting.

Like Malaysia, Singapore today has strict rules about firearm ownership, with only a few individuals granted licences annually. But back in the 1970s, several thousand Singaporean civilians owned guns, mostly for recreational purposes.

Gun owners who lived in the Queenstown area were, thus, questioned and several firearms seized, but ballistic tests turned up nothing.

The motive behind the killing was just as mysterious as the person responsible, as Chan had lived a quiet, normal life.

Theories still spread, though, to fill in the void of details, with one suggesting Chan had angered someone who wanted her dead. Perhaps this person had hired a gunman to do the deed.

Others speculated it had been a case of mistaken identity. Her sister had allegedly turned down a suitor earlier – could she have been the intended target?

Still, Chan’s family insisted she had no enemies, and there was no evidence to prove the mistaken-identity idea.

There was one other simpler theory – that it had been a freak accident. Someone in the area could have accidentally discharged their firearm, killing Chan completely by chance.

With a police station nearby, could someone cleaning their weapon have accidentally fired the fateful shot?

With no leads or means of solving the case, it has been left cold until today – truly a confounding mystery even a half-century later.