After Boh Soon Ho, a Malaysian had killed 28-year-old nurse Zhang Huaxiang from China, he took off her clothes and tried to have sex with her lifeless body.
After failing to penetrate the body, he abandoned Ms Zhang’s corpse and fled to Malaysia where he was arrested and sent back to Singapore. Was Boh a necrophile on the loose?
For 2 years in 2011 and 2012, Boh and Zhang had been colleagues at the staff cafeteria at Marina Bay Sands. Though they had gone out for meals and shopping together, they did not have a sexual relationship and Zhang had apparently never treated Boh as her boyfriend. Boh on the other hand, was hopeful that his love might one day be requited.
Things took a drastic turn when Boh stalked Ms Zhang after being spurned by her. He discovered that she had been going out with another man in 2016. Boh asked her out for lunch and after that, she went to his home (and this part I can’t understand) she went into his bedroom (why?) to comb her hair. He approached her for sex, but was turned down. Boh asked her about the other man. Zhang told him that he was her ex-boyfriend in China and disastrously, she even admitted that she was still intimate with him.
Burning with jealousy, Boh tried to force himself on her. When Zhang struggled and threatened him, he strangled Zhang with a towel. After that, he took off her clothes, took pictures of her in the nude and then tried to have sex with her, but he failed to have an erection, probably because of the tremendous stress he was under, knowing that he had killed someone.
Many readers were shocked by Boh Soon Ho’s actions. Is Boh a necrophile or someone who is sexually aroused by dead bodies? Greek author Herodotus (484–425 BC) stated in his Histories that in Ancient Egypt, bodies of exceptionally beautiful women were not embalmed immediately after their deaths, but only after several days had passed, in order to prevent a recurrence of a case where it was discovered that an embalmer had sex with the body of a recently dead woman.
So where do necrophiles get their fix? It’s pretty obvious. Apart from serial killers, necrophiles would choose certain workplaces like the hospital morgue or funeral parlour. Boh didn’t work in any of those places. The only dead body he had ever been interested in was Ms Zhang’s. I guess when he found her dead and powerless, he saw it as his only opportunity to satisfy himself after all the love and attention he had showered on her. What about true necrophiles?
According to Wikipedia, the necrophile has poor self-esteem, perhaps due in part to a significant loss; (a) They are very fearful of rejection by others and they desire a sexual partner who is incapable of rejecting them; and/or. (b) They are fearful of the dead, and transform their fear—by means of reaction formation—into a desire.
Some socially inept people develop necrophilia only after an exposure to dead bodies. When they see how “compliant” a dead body can be, they seek out such targets to satiate their sexual appetite. Someone get them a sex doll already.
In Singapore, the penalty for penetrating a corpse is a maximum five-year jail term, a fine, or both. For stealing from a corpse, the maximum punishment is three years’ jail and a fine.
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