On that day, Sosilawati, then a leading icon in the local cosmetics industry, had gone to meet with her lawyer, accompanied by three others, at his farm in Banting. She went to ask him to expedite payment for two post-dated cheques worth RM4 million in proceeds for the sale of her land handled by his legal firm.

Instead, the four met their grisly end at the hands of former lawyer N Pathmanabhan and farm workers T Thilaiyalagan and R Kathavarayan, with their bodies burned cremation-style through the use of logs.

The apparently well-planned killings, revealed in a sensational trial, shocked the nation just a day before Malaysia’s 2010 National Day celebration and several days before Aidilfitri.

The apex court on March 16 upheld the Shah Alam High Court’s decision which sentenced the trio to death for murdering Sosilawati, 47, bank officer Noohisham Mohamed, 38, lawyer Ahmad Kamil Abdul Karim, 32, and her driver Kamaruddin Shamsuddin, 44.

However, Chief Justice Arifin Zakaria, who chaired a five-man bench, acquitted another farm worker, R Matan, 26, on grounds of insufficient evidence to implicate him in the murder.

In a press conference just two days after the Federal Court judgment, in conjunction with the launch of a book compiling Justice Arifin’s judgments over the years, he said the Federal Court relied entirely on circumstantial evidence to convict the three men.

The Sosilawati murder trial was only the second time in which the court relied on circumstantial evidence to convict the accused without finding the body of the victim.

The last time this happened was in the Sunny Ang murder trial where the Singapore Grand Prix driver was sentenced to death for the murder of his girlfriend Jenny Cheok while they were scuba diving off Singapore’s waters in 1963. Singapore was then part of Malaysia before the separation in 1965.

The court was told that the motive for the murder was that Ang had taken out multiple insurance policies before Cheok’s disappearance during the diving trip. Her body has never been found.

In his 128-page judgement in the Sosilawati murder trial, Justice Arifin said the scene of the murder was a property belonging to Pathmanabhan. He said Sosilawati gave notice to Pathmanabhan to meet up with her, which necessitated going to the farm.

“In short, when Sosilawati and the three others entered the farm, an opportunity was afforded to the three accused persons to successfully carry out the murders,” he said.

He said there was preparation prior to the murders as logs were brought into the farm and fire was seen from the burning logs.

Three doctors who testified during the trial said they examined human bones recovered from the river and the farm but could not make positive findings as they were burned beyond recognition.

Sosilawati’s daughter, Erni Dekriwati Yuliana Buhati, told the trial that her mother had gone to Banting to meet Pathmanabhan to bring forward payment for two cheques worth a total of RM4 million issued by the lawyer.

The evidence of the operations manager at Hong Leong Bank revealed that as at Aug 30, 2010, the balance in Pathmanabhan’s account was about RM1.3 million.

In other words, he had insufficient funds to clear the two cheques amounting to RM4 million.

Attempts by Bernama to contact another of Sosilawati’s children to comment on the Federal Court’s decision on her mother’s killers were unsuccessful.

All that remains now is for the trio to await their date with the hangman.