On the night of 10 November 1977, Usharani d/o Ganaison, the seven-year-old student of Cairnhill Primary School, went missing after she went out of her flat to buy drinks to celebrate Deepavali with her family. About seven hours after her disappearance, she was found murdered nearby the void deck of her flat, and the medical evidence suggested that she had been molested and strangled. Two days after her murder, Usharani's uncle Kalidass s/o Sinnathamby Narayanasamy, a lance corporal of the Singapore Armed Forces, was arrested after a denture mark on Usharani's body was matched to his teeth. Although Kalidass admitted to molesting the girl, he denied killing her intentionally and raised a defence of alcohol intoxication that caused him to be mentally incapable of his actions. However, the trial court found Kalidass mentally sound at the time of the killing, and thus sentenced him to death for murder on 27 March 1980. Disappearance and murder On the night of 10 November 1977, at their flat in Toa Payoh, seven-year-old Usharani Ganaison, the youngest of three daughters in her family, went outside upon her 30-year-old father N Ganesan's request to buy drinks from a nearby coffee shop for their guests, who all came to celebrate Deepavali, which fell on the same day. She was last seen leaing the flat at about 11.30pm. However, Usharani did not return fifteen minutes after leaving the flat. Usha's elder sister also could not find Usharani at the coffee shop when her parents sent her to find her youngest sister. Later, the family and friends of Usharani went to search the whole neighbourhood for Usharani, and even sought help from a nearby passing patrol car to find the girl. However, up until 4am, they were unable to find Usharani and so they reported her disappearance to the police. Seven hours after Usharani's family made a missing persons report, at 11.30am, a group of boys playing at the void deck nearby Usharani's flat stumbled upon the half-naked corpse of a young Indian girl, which was hidden undernath a ramp, and upon the shocking discovery, they asked an adult passer-by to call the police. The police arrived at the scene, and they identified the girl as Usharani. Professor Chao Tzee Cheng, the senior forensic pathologist, examined the body during an autopsy and he determined that the girl had been strangled, and she was sexually assaulted. According to Usharani's