By Sujin Thomas

SYDNEY: Detective Sergeant Philip Elliott has seen many a dead body after 19 years on the job but the badly battered bodies of two Singaporean students murdered in 2003 in Sydney were the worst he had ever come across.

Mr Tony Tan Poh Chuan's head was 'deformed and extensively damaged', said the veteran crime scene investigator on the stand yesterday.

Pieces of plastic, presumably from a newly bought aluminium baseball bat which was used on him, were stuck to the 27-year-old student's head in a bloody mess of skin, bone and hair.

About the case

TWO Singaporean undergraduates were found brutally murdered in an apartment in suburban Sydney on Sept 15, 2003.

Seven months later, their room-mate, fellow Singaporean student Ram Puneet Tiwary, who shared the apartment with them, was arrested and charged with the double murders.

Tiwary told the police that he had been asleep at that time and woke to find his friends dead.

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