WEBVTT
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How does someone disappear in one of the safest places on earth?
00:00:16.960 --> 00:00:20.559
In some cities, people learn rules early.
00:00:21.120 --> 00:00:28.079
Which train stations empty quickly after dark, which shortcuts get avoided?
00:00:28.559 --> 00:00:31.839
Which bus stops are too secluded?
00:00:32.880 --> 00:00:36.399
Singapore created a different sense of safety.
00:00:36.719 --> 00:00:43.280
Parents expected their children home, but they also expected the city to do its part.
00:00:44.240 --> 00:00:49.200
Cameras watched public spaces, crime rates stayed low.
00:00:50.399 --> 00:00:54.159
Women walked home alone after late dinners out.
00:00:54.560 --> 00:00:58.880
College students sat at food courts after midnight.
00:00:59.359 --> 00:01:02.560
Serious violence felt distant.
00:01:03.679 --> 00:01:13.200
So when 19-year-old Felicia Tio disappeared after a night out with friends, the first response was not panic.
00:01:14.079 --> 00:01:27.439
Everyone assumed she would surface soon, that she had gone somewhere unexpectedly, that by tomorrow or the next day there would be a simple explanation.
00:01:29.040 --> 00:01:42.400
Thirteen years later, investigators would realize that parts of the story that were first accepted would eventually point in a far more troubling direction.
00:01:46.480 --> 00:01:52.640
You are listening to Missing Context Stories from Asia and the Asian Diaspora.
00:01:56.079 --> 00:01:59.359
June twenty ninth, two thousand seven.
00:02:00.159 --> 00:02:06.959
Inside a residential elevator in Singapore, three young people laugh as the doors close.
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Felicia Thyo stands beside her two friends, Ragil and Emad.
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They had spent the evening out together.
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Nothing in the footage appears unusual, no tension, no visible conflict, just three young people ending a Friday night out.
00:02:28.560 --> 00:02:32.400
They ride up to the tenth floor to Ragil's apartment.
00:02:32.960 --> 00:02:39.919
Years later, discussion around this case would keep returning to that elevator footage.
00:02:40.639 --> 00:02:47.360
Because it's the last moment in the story where anything can be seen for certain.
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Felicia steps out of the elevator, walks into an apartment she'd visited before.
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There are no cameras showing her leave.
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After that there is no footage, no witness, no proof.
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Only the account of Ragil and Ahmad, the two men who said she walked out alive.
00:03:15.280 --> 00:03:22.000
When disappearances make headlines, the picture often looks somewhat familiar.
00:03:22.319 --> 00:03:32.560
A phone call that sounds wrong, a car left abandoned, a parent or partner already under suspicion.
00:03:33.039 --> 00:03:36.240
Felicia's case did not look like that.
00:03:36.560 --> 00:03:42.560
She was an adult with friends, and nothing outwardly suggested danger.
00:03:43.360 --> 00:03:48.960
And in Singapore, many missing person reports end without serious crime.
00:03:49.520 --> 00:03:52.319
Adults leave for several reasons.
00:03:52.560 --> 00:03:59.039
They switch off phones, they return embarrassed after worrying the people who love them.
00:04:00.800 --> 00:04:09.520
So investigators initially approached the case through a lens that likely felt familiar at the time.
00:04:10.719 --> 00:04:18.319
A young woman who had chosen to leave, who would probably return soon on her own.
00:04:19.600 --> 00:04:24.720
That first assumption can shape everything that follows.
00:04:25.199 --> 00:04:35.279
Where police focus, how urgently a case is handled, and which possibilities feel less likely.
00:04:37.120 --> 00:04:46.319
That does not justify what later happened, but it may help explain why the case began the way it did.
00:04:47.839 --> 00:04:56.879
Before Felicia became the subject of a cold case, she was a young woman in the middle of a busy, normal life.
00:04:57.519 --> 00:05:01.920
Felicia stood out in photographs almost immediately.
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At one point, she dyed her hair a bright purple pink.
00:05:07.279 --> 00:05:09.839
Friends remembered her wide smile.
00:05:10.079 --> 00:05:17.439
She could sit in one circle of people and then another, remaining fully at ease in all of them.
00:05:18.160 --> 00:05:26.800
The kind of person who could arrive at a party knowing one or two people and leave having made dozens of new friends.
00:05:28.240 --> 00:05:35.920
Felicia studied at La Salle College of the Arts, where creativity spilled into everyday life.
00:05:36.240 --> 00:05:48.319
Friends gathering after class in cafes, sharing headphones to listen to music, chatting about graphic design ideas and the parties happening downtown that weekend.
00:05:49.600 --> 00:05:58.959
In one photograph, Felicia is bent over a wall mural, focused intently on painting, completely unaware of the camera.
00:06:00.480 --> 00:06:04.879
Felicia's family and friends were used to hearing from her.
00:06:06.319 --> 00:06:10.720
On the day of her disappearance, she had gone shopping with her mother.
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They'd bought matching bags.
00:06:13.439 --> 00:06:23.199
She'd been excited about her summer plans, a close friend's wedding the next day, an internship waiting, concert tickets booked.
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That is what made Felicia's disappearance so hard for those closest to her to accept.
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Messages should have been answered.
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She had plans already filling up the next week and the weeks after.
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The plans remained.
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The calendar kept moving forward.
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But Felicia never returned to any of it.
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Four days after Felicia was seen in that elevator, her family reported her missing.
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Police began retracing her last known movements.
00:07:04.720 --> 00:07:11.680
That led them to Ragil's apartment and to the two men last known to be with her.
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Both gave the same basic account.
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They said Felicia had returned to the apartment with them, stayed for a while, then became annoyed after being teased about her loud ringtone and constant texting.
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According to them, she left around 2 a.m., taking all her belongings with her.
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No witnesses were able to contradict that account.
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There was no obvious crime scene, no clear sign that something serious had happened inside the apartment.
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Neighbors reported no disturbance.
00:07:51.279 --> 00:07:58.399
Years later, people would ask why the two men were not scrutinized more aggressively from the start.
00:07:58.959 --> 00:08:09.279
A young woman was missing, and the last people known to be with her were two men whose stories could not be independently verified.
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But investigations are usually driven by evidence available at the time, not by suspicion alone.
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At that stage, police were dealing with a missing adult who may have left voluntarily.
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There was no known abusive partner, no immediate threat in her life, no obvious reason to believe she had walked into danger.
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So detectives checked hospitals, immigration records, phone activity.
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The kind of places investigators search when they believe someone may still be out there.
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A person who may have had a medical emergency, who might be traveling or was simply out of contact for reasons not yet known.
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Investigators search differently depending on the question they start with.
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If someone is believed to be missing, the search becomes where has she gone?
00:09:15.519 --> 00:09:23.200
If a crime is suspected, the question changes to what happened inside that apartment?
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Felicia's family did not believe she had simply walked away.
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She had very little cash with her, she always kept in contact.
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Disappearing without explanation was deeply out of character.
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While authorities checked records and databases, Felicia's family searched through every lead they could reach on their own.
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They called friends again, distributed flyers.
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They traveled into Malaysia fearing she may have been trafficked across the border.
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They were working with information investigators can never fully document, the knowledge of who Felicia was.
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They knew her habits, her routines, what she would do, and what she would never do.
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They woke up each day believing the same thing.
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Felicia had not simply walked away.
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One question would resurface again and again over time.
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If Felicia entered that apartment and there was no record of her leaving, why were stronger steps not taken immediately?
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The public record does not offer one complete answer, but it does show how the case was being understood in those first days.
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Police worked the case as a missing person inquiry.
00:11:01.759 --> 00:11:11.440
They checked where Felicia had been, who she had contacted, whether money had moved, whether anyone had seen her after that night.
00:11:12.320 --> 00:11:15.679
Every search ended with the same result.
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The trail simply stopped.
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While investigators searched for signs of where Felicia might have gone, time was giving Ragil and Ahmad room to act.
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Days passed.
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The apartment was cleaned, items were discarded, and opportunities to preserve evidence disappeared one after another.
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Ahmad would eventually admit that the room had been thoroughly cleaned before police even questioned the two men.
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By the time investigators knocked on Raquel's door, they were no longer looking at the scene as it had been.
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They were looking at what remained after days of preparation.
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Cases rarely stall because early signs are missed entirely.
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More often, early explanations start shaping what gets written down, who gets questioned further, and what leads are dropped.
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A missing young woman with no prior history of trouble becomes someone who probably needed time away from home.
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A quiet apartment complex becomes a sign that nothing serious happened.
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Days pass, and then years, before anyone realizes that the investigation had been relying on completely wrong assumptions.
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This was also 2007, before live location sharing, before find my phone, before devices began preserving a person's day.
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So when someone disappeared, there were larger gaps to fill, and people often filled those gaps with what felt realistic at the time.
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A 19-year-old, spending a few days with different friends, plans changing, traveling somewhere unexpectedly and turning up a week or two later.
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Few return to Felicia's story for a single point in time.
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What they returned to are the preconceptions that were already in place when she was first reported missing, and the belief that there would be time.
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The case sat still for years, until one item unexpectedly brought investigators back to the beginning.
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Felicia's story never fully left public memory, but for a long time it stopped moving.
00:14:17.360 --> 00:14:21.279
Local investigators had exhausted obvious leads.
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There were no confirmed sightings, no financial activity, no proof of death.
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So in 2020, the case was taken over by Singapore's criminal investigation department.
00:14:35.519 --> 00:14:42.480
Fresh investigators revisited old statements, evidence, and items linked to Felicia.
00:14:43.600 --> 00:14:51.120
That review led them to Felicia's laptop, an item Ahmad had kept.
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Its trail brought investigators back to Ahmad.
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He was brought in for questioning.
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This time his account changed.
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Ahmad said that after returning to the apartment, the three friends had taken ecstasy and fallen asleep.
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Later, he said, he and Ragil woke to find Felicia dead.
00:15:21.039 --> 00:15:25.759
What followed was much more than a few minutes of panic.
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It was not a call for help.
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It was not a call to police.
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According to Ahmad, they hid Felicia's body between two mattresses inside the apartment.
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They left the building using the stairwell where there were no cameras.
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They placed her phone on a bench in a nearby park where police would later recover it.
00:15:52.960 --> 00:16:00.559
The men bought a large cardboard box from a hardware store and placed Felicia's body inside it.
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They then took a taxi to Pongol Track 25, a secluded forested area.
00:16:09.519 --> 00:16:18.240
There, Ahmad and Ragil burnt the box with Felicia's body and buried what remained.
00:16:19.519 --> 00:16:29.360
Afterward, messages were sent to Felicia's phone and social media accounts, creating the appearance that both men were trying to reach her.
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Some belongings were discarded.
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Others, including her laptop and camera lenses, were kept.
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Ahmad later said fear drove those decisions.
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At that time, Singapore's drug laws were among the harshest in the world.
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Ecstasy and other party drugs carried severe penalties, including long prison sentences and, in some cases, the death penalty.
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Earlier that year, two foreign nationals had been executed for drug offenses.
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According to Ahmad's account, that was what ran through their minds after they found Felicia unresponsive.
00:17:16.960 --> 00:17:22.240
Fear of arrest, fear of what consequences could become.
00:17:22.720 --> 00:17:28.799
It was that fear, he said, that pushed the two men to hide Felicia's death.
00:17:30.400 --> 00:17:39.039
Now, fear may explain why they initially panicked, but it does not justify what followed.
00:17:39.680 --> 00:17:43.119
And it does not answer the central questions.
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Did Felicia die from a reaction to drugs?
00:17:47.920 --> 00:17:50.559
Was something else done to her?
00:17:50.880 --> 00:17:54.880
Was she already dead when they burnt and buried her?
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Or unconscious?
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Those questions have never been publicly resolved.
00:18:03.519 --> 00:18:09.599
What is clear is that the version of events given in 2007 had come apart.
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A skull fragment found at Pungol Track 25 in 2010, initially unidentified, was later confirmed through DNA testing to belong to Felicia after Ahmad's confession.
00:18:27.519 --> 00:18:38.880
Ahmad was eventually sentenced to twenty-six months imprisonment for his offenses, including giving false information and disposing of Felicia's body.
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He was not convicted of murder.
00:18:43.680 --> 00:18:48.079
But the case could still change if new evidence emerges.
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Ragil had already left Singapore and remains wanted.
00:18:54.880 --> 00:19:01.680
Even now, major questions from that night have no complete answer.
00:19:04.079 --> 00:19:21.680
Felicia Tio's case keeps returning to public attention because it breaks a pattern people expect, that danger announces itself, that it appears through confrontation, prolonged threats, deserted streets.
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Felicia was last seen on a Friday night that looked like dozens before it, in a familiar place with those who were a part of her everyday life.
00:19:37.119 --> 00:19:41.279
The hours after Felicia's disappearance would turn into years.
00:19:41.920 --> 00:19:50.960
While the public saw another missing person case, Felicia's family kept hoping each phone call might change something.
00:19:51.839 --> 00:19:55.200
For thirteen years they remained in the same home.
00:19:55.440 --> 00:19:58.160
They kept Felicia's room untouched.
00:19:58.400 --> 00:20:00.480
They held onto hope.
00:20:00.720 --> 00:20:03.680
They waited, imagining explanations.
00:20:04.400 --> 00:20:08.720
Perhaps she had left for reasons they didn't know.
00:20:09.119 --> 00:20:12.400
Perhaps she had started over somewhere else.
00:20:12.799 --> 00:20:18.880
Perhaps one day she would walk back through the door and explain everything.
00:20:20.720 --> 00:20:23.599
Waiting became a part of life.
00:20:37.359 --> 00:20:45.920
She was with people she considered friends in a city many trusted on a Friday night that looked unremarkable.
00:20:46.799 --> 00:20:53.599
By the time that version of events fell apart, the apartment had been cleaned.
00:20:53.920 --> 00:21:00.240
One man had left Singapore, and thirteen years had already passed.
00:00:09.759 --> 00:00:16.320
How does someone disappear in one of the safest places on earth?
00:00:16.960 --> 00:00:20.559
In some cities, people learn rules early.
00:00:21.120 --> 00:00:28.079
Which train stations empty quickly after dark, which shortcuts get avoided?
00:00:28.559 --> 00:00:31.839
Which bus stops are too secluded?
00:00:32.880 --> 00:00:36.399
Singapore created a different sense of safety.
00:00:36.719 --> 00:00:43.280
Parents expected their children home, but they also expected the city to do its part.
00:00:44.240 --> 00:00:49.200
Cameras watched public spaces, crime rates stayed low.
00:00:50.399 --> 00:00:54.159
Women walked home alone after late dinners out.
00:00:54.560 --> 00:00:58.880
College students sat at food courts after midnight.
00:00:59.359 --> 00:01:02.560
Serious violence felt distant.
00:01:03.679 --> 00:01:13.200
So when 19-year-old Felicia Tio disappeared after a night out with friends, the first response was not panic.
00:01:14.079 --> 00:01:27.439
Everyone assumed she would surface soon, that she had gone somewhere unexpectedly, that by tomorrow or the next day there would be a simple explanation.
00:01:29.040 --> 00:01:42.400
Thirteen years later, investigators would realize that parts of the story that were first accepted would eventually point in a far more troubling direction.
00:01:46.480 --> 00:01:52.640
You are listening to Missing Context Stories from Asia and the Asian Diaspora.
00:01:56.079 --> 00:01:59.359
June twenty ninth, two thousand seven.
00:02:00.159 --> 00:02:06.959
Inside a residential elevator in Singapore, three young people laugh as the doors close.
00:02:07.359 --> 00:02:12.800
Felicia Thyo stands beside her two friends, Ragil and Emad.
00:02:13.280 --> 00:02:16.240
They had spent the evening out together.
00:02:16.560 --> 00:02:27.520
Nothing in the footage appears unusual, no tension, no visible conflict, just three young people ending a Friday night out.
00:02:28.560 --> 00:02:32.400
They ride up to the tenth floor to Ragil's apartment.
00:02:32.960 --> 00:02:39.919
Years later, discussion around this case would keep returning to that elevator footage.
00:02:40.639 --> 00:02:47.360
Because it's the last moment in the story where anything can be seen for certain.
00:02:48.400 --> 00:02:55.759
Felicia steps out of the elevator, walks into an apartment she'd visited before.
00:02:56.560 --> 00:03:00.159
There are no cameras showing her leave.
00:03:00.800 --> 00:03:05.439
After that there is no footage, no witness, no proof.
00:03:06.240 --> 00:03:13.840
Only the account of Ragil and Ahmad, the two men who said she walked out alive.
00:03:15.280 --> 00:03:22.000
When disappearances make headlines, the picture often looks somewhat familiar.
00:03:22.319 --> 00:03:32.560
A phone call that sounds wrong, a car left abandoned, a parent or partner already under suspicion.
00:03:33.039 --> 00:03:36.240
Felicia's case did not look like that.
00:03:36.560 --> 00:03:42.560
She was an adult with friends, and nothing outwardly suggested danger.
00:03:43.360 --> 00:03:48.960
And in Singapore, many missing person reports end without serious crime.
00:03:49.520 --> 00:03:52.319
Adults leave for several reasons.
00:03:52.560 --> 00:03:59.039
They switch off phones, they return embarrassed after worrying the people who love them.
00:04:00.800 --> 00:04:09.520
So investigators initially approached the case through a lens that likely felt familiar at the time.
00:04:10.719 --> 00:04:18.319
A young woman who had chosen to leave, who would probably return soon on her own.
00:04:19.600 --> 00:04:24.720
That first assumption can shape everything that follows.
00:04:25.199 --> 00:04:35.279
Where police focus, how urgently a case is handled, and which possibilities feel less likely.
00:04:37.120 --> 00:04:46.319
That does not justify what later happened, but it may help explain why the case began the way it did.
00:04:47.839 --> 00:04:56.879
Before Felicia became the subject of a cold case, she was a young woman in the middle of a busy, normal life.
00:04:57.519 --> 00:05:01.920
Felicia stood out in photographs almost immediately.
00:05:02.240 --> 00:05:06.639
At one point, she dyed her hair a bright purple pink.
00:05:07.279 --> 00:05:09.839
Friends remembered her wide smile.
00:05:10.079 --> 00:05:17.439
She could sit in one circle of people and then another, remaining fully at ease in all of them.
00:05:18.160 --> 00:05:26.800
The kind of person who could arrive at a party knowing one or two people and leave having made dozens of new friends.
00:05:28.240 --> 00:05:35.920
Felicia studied at La Salle College of the Arts, where creativity spilled into everyday life.
00:05:36.240 --> 00:05:48.319
Friends gathering after class in cafes, sharing headphones to listen to music, chatting about graphic design ideas and the parties happening downtown that weekend.
00:05:49.600 --> 00:05:58.959
In one photograph, Felicia is bent over a wall mural, focused intently on painting, completely unaware of the camera.
00:06:00.480 --> 00:06:04.879
Felicia's family and friends were used to hearing from her.
00:06:06.319 --> 00:06:10.720
On the day of her disappearance, she had gone shopping with her mother.
00:06:10.959 --> 00:06:13.199
They'd bought matching bags.
00:06:13.439 --> 00:06:23.199
She'd been excited about her summer plans, a close friend's wedding the next day, an internship waiting, concert tickets booked.
00:06:24.160 --> 00:06:30.959
That is what made Felicia's disappearance so hard for those closest to her to accept.
00:06:31.279 --> 00:06:34.000
Messages should have been answered.
00:06:34.240 --> 00:06:39.680
She had plans already filling up the next week and the weeks after.
00:06:41.279 --> 00:06:43.360
The plans remained.
00:06:43.680 --> 00:06:46.800
The calendar kept moving forward.
00:06:47.680 --> 00:06:52.160
But Felicia never returned to any of it.
00:06:53.519 --> 00:06:59.680
Four days after Felicia was seen in that elevator, her family reported her missing.
00:07:00.240 --> 00:07:04.000
Police began retracing her last known movements.
00:07:04.720 --> 00:07:11.680
That led them to Ragil's apartment and to the two men last known to be with her.
00:07:12.240 --> 00:07:15.120
Both gave the same basic account.
00:07:15.360 --> 00:07:26.240
They said Felicia had returned to the apartment with them, stayed for a while, then became annoyed after being teased about her loud ringtone and constant texting.
00:07:27.360 --> 00:07:33.199
According to them, she left around 2 a.m., taking all her belongings with her.
00:07:34.000 --> 00:07:37.680
No witnesses were able to contradict that account.
00:07:38.000 --> 00:07:46.240
There was no obvious crime scene, no clear sign that something serious had happened inside the apartment.
00:07:46.639 --> 00:07:49.519
Neighbors reported no disturbance.
00:07:51.279 --> 00:07:58.399
Years later, people would ask why the two men were not scrutinized more aggressively from the start.
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A young woman was missing, and the last people known to be with her were two men whose stories could not be independently verified.
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But investigations are usually driven by evidence available at the time, not by suspicion alone.
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At that stage, police were dealing with a missing adult who may have left voluntarily.
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There was no known abusive partner, no immediate threat in her life, no obvious reason to believe she had walked into danger.
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So detectives checked hospitals, immigration records, phone activity.
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The kind of places investigators search when they believe someone may still be out there.
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A person who may have had a medical emergency, who might be traveling or was simply out of contact for reasons not yet known.
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Investigators search differently depending on the question they start with.
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If someone is believed to be missing, the search becomes where has she gone?
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If a crime is suspected, the question changes to what happened inside that apartment?
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Felicia's family did not believe she had simply walked away.
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She had very little cash with her, she always kept in contact.
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Disappearing without explanation was deeply out of character.
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While authorities checked records and databases, Felicia's family searched through every lead they could reach on their own.
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They called friends again, distributed flyers.
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They traveled into Malaysia fearing she may have been trafficked across the border.
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They were working with information investigators can never fully document, the knowledge of who Felicia was.
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They knew her habits, her routines, what she would do, and what she would never do.
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They woke up each day believing the same thing.
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Felicia had not simply walked away.
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One question would resurface again and again over time.
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If Felicia entered that apartment and there was no record of her leaving, why were stronger steps not taken immediately?
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The public record does not offer one complete answer, but it does show how the case was being understood in those first days.
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Police worked the case as a missing person inquiry.
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They checked where Felicia had been, who she had contacted, whether money had moved, whether anyone had seen her after that night.
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Every search ended with the same result.
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The trail simply stopped.
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While investigators searched for signs of where Felicia might have gone, time was giving Ragil and Ahmad room to act.
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Days passed.
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The apartment was cleaned, items were discarded, and opportunities to preserve evidence disappeared one after another.
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Ahmad would eventually admit that the room had been thoroughly cleaned before police even questioned the two men.
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By the time investigators knocked on Raquel's door, they were no longer looking at the scene as it had been.
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They were looking at what remained after days of preparation.
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Cases rarely stall because early signs are missed entirely.
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More often, early explanations start shaping what gets written down, who gets questioned further, and what leads are dropped.
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A missing young woman with no prior history of trouble becomes someone who probably needed time away from home.
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A quiet apartment complex becomes a sign that nothing serious happened.
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Days pass, and then years, before anyone realizes that the investigation had been relying on completely wrong assumptions.
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This was also 2007, before live location sharing, before find my phone, before devices began preserving a person's day.
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So when someone disappeared, there were larger gaps to fill, and people often filled those gaps with what felt realistic at the time.
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A 19-year-old, spending a few days with different friends, plans changing, traveling somewhere unexpectedly and turning up a week or two later.
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Few return to Felicia's story for a single point in time.
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What they returned to are the preconceptions that were already in place when she was first reported missing, and the belief that there would be time.
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The case sat still for years, until one item unexpectedly brought investigators back to the beginning.
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Felicia's story never fully left public memory, but for a long time it stopped moving.
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Local investigators had exhausted obvious leads.
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There were no confirmed sightings, no financial activity, no proof of death.
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So in 2020, the case was taken over by Singapore's criminal investigation department.
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Fresh investigators revisited old statements, evidence, and items linked to Felicia.
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That review led them to Felicia's laptop, an item Ahmad had kept.
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Its trail brought investigators back to Ahmad.
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He was brought in for questioning.
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This time his account changed.
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Ahmad said that after returning to the apartment, the three friends had taken ecstasy and fallen asleep.
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Later, he said, he and Ragil woke to find Felicia dead.
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What followed was much more than a few minutes of panic.
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It was not a call for help.
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It was not a call to police.
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According to Ahmad, they hid Felicia's body between two mattresses inside the apartment.
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They left the building using the stairwell where there were no cameras.
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They placed her phone on a bench in a nearby park where police would later recover it.
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The men bought a large cardboard box from a hardware store and placed Felicia's body inside it.
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They then took a taxi to Pongol Track 25, a secluded forested area.
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There, Ahmad and Ragil burnt the box with Felicia's body and buried what remained.
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Afterward, messages were sent to Felicia's phone and social media accounts, creating the appearance that both men were trying to reach her.
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Some belongings were discarded.
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Others, including her laptop and camera lenses, were kept.
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Ahmad later said fear drove those decisions.
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At that time, Singapore's drug laws were among the harshest in the world.
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Ecstasy and other party drugs carried severe penalties, including long prison sentences and, in some cases, the death penalty.
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Earlier that year, two foreign nationals had been executed for drug offenses.
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According to Ahmad's account, that was what ran through their minds after they found Felicia unresponsive.
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Fear of arrest, fear of what consequences could become.
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It was that fear, he said, that pushed the two men to hide Felicia's death.
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Now, fear may explain why they initially panicked, but it does not justify what followed.
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And it does not answer the central questions.
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Did Felicia die from a reaction to drugs?
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Was something else done to her?
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Was she already dead when they burnt and buried her?
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Or unconscious?
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Those questions have never been publicly resolved.
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What is clear is that the version of events given in 2007 had come apart.
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A skull fragment found at Pungol Track 25 in 2010, initially unidentified, was later confirmed through DNA testing to belong to Felicia after Ahmad's confession.
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Ahmad was eventually sentenced to twenty-six months imprisonment for his offenses, including giving false information and disposing of Felicia's body.
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He was not convicted of murder.
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But the case could still change if new evidence emerges.
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Ragil had already left Singapore and remains wanted.
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Even now, major questions from that night have no complete answer.
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Felicia Tio's case keeps returning to public attention because it breaks a pattern people expect, that danger announces itself, that it appears through confrontation, prolonged threats, deserted streets.
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Felicia was last seen on a Friday night that looked like dozens before it, in a familiar place with those who were a part of her everyday life.
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The hours after Felicia's disappearance would turn into years.
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While the public saw another missing person case, Felicia's family kept hoping each phone call might change something.
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For thirteen years they remained in the same home.
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They kept Felicia's room untouched.
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They held onto hope.
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They waited, imagining explanations.
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Perhaps she had left for reasons they didn't know.
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Perhaps she had started over somewhere else.
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Perhaps one day she would walk back through the door and explain everything.
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Waiting became a part of life.
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She was with people she considered friends in a city many trusted on a Friday night that looked unremarkable.
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By the time that version of events fell apart, the apartment had been cleaned.
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One man had left Singapore, and thirteen years had already passed.
