Wednesday, August 23, 2006

A Finality Of Sorts For Luke Ling's Family.

This is the type of uncertainty that no one, friend or enemy, should be subjected to. Luke Ling Lee Kong would have been 42 years old this year. But he never got this far. You see, he disappeared in Australia in 1988 at the age of 24. Recently the Australian police managed to make a positive DNA match with a jawbone found in 1994!

The discovery has at least resolved one question, albeit tragically for Luke's family, and that is he is confirmed dead. There is no more uncertainty hanging over their heads on this point. However now comes the other and more pertinent question - what exactly did happen to poor Luke Ling? The full report here...........

....A human jaw bone discovered more than a decade ago in a Queensland paddock belongs to a Malaysian, DNA tests have revealed. Luke Ling Lee Kong, came from Sibu, Sarawak to study at the elite Peninsula (Boarding) School at Mt Eliza in the Mornington Peninsular near here and completed Year 12 in 1981. He was 24 when he disappeared in 1988.

After his tertiary education in Brisbane and Toowoomba in Queensland, Ling took up bodybuilding on the Gold Coast, Det Sen-Sgt Roger Lowe, of the Queensland Police Service, said in a media statement. "He got involved in bodybuilding, then he travelled a bit and then got involved in the security industry," Det Sen-Sgt Lowe said. Ling worked in Mackay nightclubs, north of Brisbane, in the 1980s.

Ling's sister, Brisbane-based Fiona Ling, had irregular contact with her brother after he left school, but remembered how he was always fit and healthy, and loved bodybuilding. Fiona was in Mackay last week to make a public plea for information about her brother. "On behalf of our family, we need to know what happened to him," she told the Brisbane Courier-Mail newspaper. Fiona said although the discovery had devastated her family, there was still an element of relief. "It's been upsetting for our family because we hoped that we would find Luke alive, but I guess we at least now know what happened to him," she said.

Fiona said she had not heard from her brother since he telephoned her in November 1987. "He was drifting a lot, moving between Sydney and the Gold Coast and I never really knew where he was until he called," she said.

She said the family was trying to come to grips with Luke's death and it was especially difficult for their mother. The family moved to Australia from Malaysia when the children - Fiona, Luke and two other brothers - were young. The two brothers are believed to be in Malaysia.

The jaw bone was found in a paddock in Oakenden, south of Mackay, in May 1994, when the property owner stumbled across it. Investigations were conducted at the time, but were exhausted in 1995. Tests revealed he died in suspicious circumstances in the late 1980s or early 1990s.

Mackay Criminal Investigation Branch reopened the case in 2002 and recent advances in DNA technology enabled Queensland Health Pathology to identify the jaw bone as belonging to Ling. "The recent discovery of the link between the missing person investigation into Luke Ling and the DNA match from the jaw bone is a major breakthrough, linking two unsolved matters," Det-Insp Mick Niland said.

The police investigation, named Operation Mascot, into Ling's death was continuing with homicide detectives joining Mackay detectives in scouring the Oakenden property. Det-Insp Niland said ground-penetrating radar technology would be used to find any further skeletal remains.

**** Our sympathies to the family of Luke and may they have the continued strength to face the challenges ahead.

4 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

hmm sibu? Ling family, i wonder who they are. but i was too young tat time.. 1994

5:28 PM GMT+8  
Blogger blackbook said...

Luke was the handsome Eurasian son of the late Datuk Sri Ling Beng Sung, a founder member of Kong Ming bank.

It seems that a suspect has been arrested lately and would be charged in a Brisbane court soon.

6:30 PM GMT+8  
Blogger Unknown said...

It seems his father, Datuk Ling betrayed and sold Sarawak to the UMNO in exchange for a banking licence! If so, it is the bastard traitor who should have been killed instead of his son.

7:25 AM GMT+8  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Eddy you got it wrong. If anyone who sold off Sarawak it was the late Datuk Ling Beng Siew. Ling Beng Sung was,still studying in Australia when Sarawak joined Malaysia in 1963.Luke Ling was Ling Beng sung's son .

7:08 PM GMT+8  

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