Singapore McDonald's Boys

The disappearance of the boys

On the afternoon of 14 May 1986 in Owen Road, Singapore, two primary school boys, 12-year-old Keh Chin Ann and his same-age best friend Toh Hong Huat, who were classmates from the same school and class, were last known to be walking together to school after Chin Ann fetched Hong Huat from his house nearby their school. The boys were never seen again, and they went missing on that afternoon of 14 May 1986. Since then, investigations and search efforts were made to locate the boys' whereabouts. The case was dubbed the McDonald's boys case due to the Singaporean branch of the fast-food chain McDonald's offering a hefty S$100,000 reward for any information related to the boys' whereabouts.

Countless theories evolved around the reason behind the boys' disappearance, which included possible kidnapping, murder, and even the possibility of the boys running away from home. However, the theories were not proven due to a lack of concrete evidence. The search efforts expanded from Singapore to other neighbouring countries like Malaysia, Indonesia, and Thailand, but the search failed to yield any tangible information relating to the boys' whereabouts. The boys, who were both declared legally dead long ago, were never found. The McDonald's boys case subsequently became known to be one of the most bizarre missing cases that has ever occurred in Singapore.

Keh Chin Ann

On the afternoon of 14 May 1986, 12-year-old Primary Six student Keh Chin Ann, the youngest of three children and only son of his family, alighted from his school bus and reached his school - Owen Primary School (now defunct since 1989 and demolished), where he was enrolled in the afternoon class shift. One of Chin Ann's classmates, Wang Piwei, was the last person to physically see Chin Ann alive, as he approached Chin Ann, offering to help him take care of his school bag as Chin Ann wanted to go to the nearby shops outside their school to buy something. Piwei then left Chin Ann's bag at the school's tuckshop bench, assuming that Chin Ann would come back to collect it. However, he never saw his classmate again after that moment Chin Ann left the school.

Toh Hong Huat

Chin Ann's 12-year-old best friend and Malaysian-born classmate Toh Hong Huat, who lived with his Malaysian mother Tan Geok at a house located 500 meters away from his school, was last seen by his mother at his house. According to Tan, Hong Huat, who was her first and only child, went outside the house and told her he was walking to school together with his friend Chin Ann, who came to fetch him. That moment was the last time Tan saw her son ever again. Tan said that it was unlike Hong Huat to not let her accompany him to school as usual that day as he was usually more timid and liked his mother's company in public.

After they met up, the boys however, failed to show up for class at 12:55 pm and they were never seen again after 12:30 pm on 14 May 1986.

Investigation of the missing boys

The form teacher noticed the absence of the two boys Toh Hong Huat and Keh Chin Ann, and informed the boys' parents. By evening, after receiving the call from the school teachers, Hong Huat's 46-year-old mother Tan Geok Kuan and Chin Ann's parents - 51-year-old coffee powder seller Keh Cheng Pan and 46-year-old housewife Tay Mee Na - showed up in school out of concern. Wang Piwei, Chin Ann's classmate who last seen him, earlier informed the teachers about Chin Ann's absence. Even though it occurred to the teachers that Hong Huat and Chin Ann may have played truant, however, it was unlikely so because the boys were generally well-behaved and did not miss classes; Hong Huat even ranked the first in his class for the mathematics test. By 7:15 pm, the boys' parents failed to find their sons.

The police were later contacted and they searched the estates surrounding the boys' school for days following their disappearances, but they could not find any helpful information. The police also published and distributed thousands of missing posters of Hong Huat and Chin Ann, which were distributed island-wide in Singapore to urge anyone who had information on the whereabouts of the missing boys to contact the police, and the public media also publicized the case extensively. By May 1988, two years after the boys' disappearance, over a 100 people were interviewed by the police to obtain a lead.

On 27 August 1986, an anonymous informant reported to the police that he saw the missing boys on Pulau Ubin. The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) dispatched nearly 100 officers to Pulau Ubin, splitting the officers into 24 sections and smaller teams to search for the boys throughout the whole island. However, the police were unable to find the boys; the boys' families also joined the search but also found nothing.

A few months after the incident, Hong Huat's mother returned to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia to search for her son. In 1990, Tan reached out to a local newspaper and also the Malaysian Chinese Association for help, and the Malaysian authorities also responded to Tan's appeal to search for the boys. In 1987, the Singapore Police Force expanded their search to Malaysia and a few other neighboring countries like Indonesia and Thailand. The missing boys’ reports have also been sent to Interpol. However, the international search still failed to locate the whereabouts of Hong Huat and Chin Ann.

In November 1988, two years and six months after Chin Ann and Hong Huat went missing, Singapore's national newspaper The Straits Times sent a request for help from an American company based in the United States to recreate a photo of what Chin Ann would physically resemble in his 14-year-old self using facial recognition technology. The request was granted and the photo of Chin Ann, which was published in November 1988, created based on the photo of Chin Ann in his 12-year-old self and also the photo of one of his elder sisters Hui Hong in her 14-year-old self.

In 1994, during the eighth year of the boys' disappearance, the police released the photos of Chin Ann and Hong Huat in their 20-year-old selves, created with the help of facial recognition technology and computer technology.

Why it's called The McDonald's Boys

Despite their poverty, the families of Toh Hong Huat and Keh Chin Ann initially offered a S$1,000 reward each to anyone who could provide information about their sons' whereabouts. Both families increased the reward to S$5,000 in July 1986, which later increased to S$20,000 two months later. The families stated that they had no other options but to raise the reward due to their increasing desperation to get any information about their sons' whereabouts.

In October 1986, Managing Director Robert Kwan, who led the Singaporean branch of the fast food chain McDonald's, announced that the company would be offering a S$100,000 reward for any new information on the whereabouts of the two missing boys. They also put up missing posters of the boys and publicized the reward at every outlet of McDonald's across the whole of Singapore.

Aftermath

The McDonald's boys case grew to become one of Singapore's most mysterious and bizarre missing person cases and as of today, Toh Hong Huat and Keh Chin Ann remained missing and were never found.

Personal Views

I find this case very chilling and as a Singaporean parent myself I'm glad Singapore is safer nowadays with a very low crime rate. The offence of kidnapping in Singapore carries a penalty of death, or life imprisonment with caning.