Kallang River Horror Stories: The 2005 Body Parts Murder and More

1. The Kallang River body parts murder (2005)

On the morning of 16 June 2005, a cleaner working along the Kallang River noticed a soaked cardboard box sealed with tape at the water's edge. It fell apart when he moved it. Inside a plastic bag was the lower torso of a woman. Police sealed the area and started searching the banks, and more boxes turned up.

The woman was Liu Hong Mei, 22, a production operator from Changchun in China working in Singapore. Her killer was her own supervisor at the same company, Leong Siew Chor, 50. He strangled her in his flat on 15 June, cut her body into pieces and left them at the river and other places around Singapore. He was arrested on 18 June, sentenced to death on 19 May 2006, and hanged on 30 November 2007. Our reel spelled his name Leong Siu Chor; the court record says Siew. For the same format in another city, our three Bangkok horror stories mix true crime and folklore the same way.

2. The boy who was swept away (2026)

This one is recent and it is not a ghost story, whatever the comments say. On 25 February 2026, a 13-year-old boy was fishing with friends at the river near Kallang MRT station when a line got caught in a net near the water. He climbed down to free it, slipped and fell in. Another boy who also fell in was pulled out. He was carried off by the current.

Rescuers searched that night and stopped after about four hours because it was too dark to see, then went back out at first light. His body was recovered from the water off Kallang MRT station on the night of 26 February. Our reel ended this part on a spooky note. The honest version is sadder: a kid, a snagged line and a river that looks calmer than it is.

3. The policeman by the bridge (legend)

The last one is the story fishermen tell. Three friends go fishing near a bridge on the Kallang River around midnight. They have barely started when one of them insists they leave, and he will not say why. Later he admits he kept seeing a tall Malay policeman appear and charge straight at him, over and over. Every time he turned around, there was nobody there.

The explanation that goes with it: in the 1970s a Malay policeman was lured to that bridge by a gangster and stabbed to death. That backstory circulates on Singapore ghost story sites, but we could not find a news report or court record that confirms it, so treat it as folklore. Which is the right way to hear a ghost story anyway.