S'porean couple, aged 23 & 27, regularly suffocated & hit their 8-month-old baby, who died after mum smothered him

A Singaporean couple pleaded guilty on Oct. 12, 2026 to causing the death of their eight-month-old baby.

Chloe Gan Ci Xuan, 23, and Neo Jia Ming, 27, admitted to smothering or shaking their son, Trevor Neo, to stop him from crying for almost the entirety of his life.

This eventually led to baby Trevor's death on Sep. 2, 2024, after Gan suffocated him again using her hands and flipped him in his cot.

Neo did not do anything to stop this ill-treatment.

The couple pleaded guilty on Oct. 12 to various charges linked to the death of their son.

At one point during the court hearing, Gan appeared to be crying as she covered her face. Meanwhile, Neo remained expressionless.

Gan is represented by lawyers Josephus Tan and Cory Wong from Invictus Law, while Neo is represented by Johannes Hadi and Seraphine Loh Tian Hui from Eugene Thuraisingam Asia LLC.

The case was presided over by High Court Justice Hoo Sheau Peng, who also presided over the case of four-year-old Megan Khung, who died at the hands of her mother and boyfriend.

What couple did

The court heard that Gan moved out of her parents' house to stay with Neo after learning she was pregnant with Trevor in April 2023.

The couple had married in August 2023 and Gan gave birth to Trevor on Dec. 9, 2023.

She then moved back in with her parents, where she learnt how to take care of the baby with the help of a confinement nanny.

After the confinement period ended in January 2024, Gan and Trevor moved back in with Neo, who shared a flat with his uncles.

A nanny was hired to care for Trevor during the day on weekdays while other relatives helped look after him on weekends.

Shook baby to stop him from crying

Soon after, Gan realised she could make Trevor stop crying or lose consciousness by shaking him vigorously after seeing Neo do so.

The couple took to shaking him frequently to stop him from crying.

At one point, Trevor had to be hospitalised for a week after he lost consciousness from the shaking.

The abuse did not stop at the shaking.

Gan was frustrated about Trevor's crying and would also assault him by hitting his hand, chest, thigh and buttocks, leaving bruises.

Neo did not intervene each time Gan did so.

In April 2024, Neo would cover the baby's nose and mouth whenever he cried for two weeks straight.

Gan also followed suit.

In May 2024, qhen Trevor became strong enough to pull away the blanket Gan used to smother him, Gan began using her hands to press down on the baby until he fainted.

That same month, Gan's mother noticed bruises on the baby and warned them to stop hitting the baby.

The couple did not listen.

Day of fatal abuse

On Sep. 1, 2024, the couple left the baby in Neo's uncles' care while they went for dinner.

The couple came back around 8pm and left Trevor in his cot while they used their phones in the room.

At one point, Trevor started to cry and Gan went over to his cot frustrated as she could not sleep.

She started to press a blanket over his face for close to a minute until Trevor twitched and slowed down.

However, he started to cry again when she lifted her hands.

Gan then continued pressing the blanket over the baby's face and repeated the action about three to four times until she felt her arm trembling.

As she did so, Neo asked her, "How? You want the baby to die? If anything happens, we will go to jail."

Gan replied: "Wait for the baby to make noise first, then you try again."

Pounded on the baby with hand

A minute later, the baby started to cry again, and Gan went over to the cot.

She then covered his face with both hands and pressed down hard, repeatedly pounding one hand over the other.

The prosecutor said Gan did so until she felt her hands losing strength.

At 11:30pm, Neo finished playing his mobile phone game and went to check on the baby.

He realised that Trevor was not breathing and his hands were cold, and woke Gan up to check on him.

Gan went over to Trevor and found him with purple lips and one eye open.

She started to pat him on the back, and the couple later attempted cardiopulmonary resuscitation on the baby but to no avail.

They called a taxi to go to the hospital as Neo did not want to incur the costs of calling an ambulance.

On the way to the hospital, Neo told Gan to keep quiet and "not say anything".

If the police did not get involved, they could continue living their lives and not worry about money anymore, Neo said.

Trevor was later pronounced dead at about 12:20am on Sep. 2, 2024, at KK Women's and Children's Hospital (KKH).

A nurse lodged a police report saying the baby died under suspicious circumstances.

The couple was arrested that same morning.

Other acts of abuse

The court heard that the couple would also abuse Trevor in other ways, such as by slapping, hitting and squeezing him until he turned purple.

In one incident on Jan. 18, 2024, Gan tried feeding Trevor milk, but he did not respond to her when she tapped his chin.

Text messages read out in court showed that the couple communicated about this incident.

In one message, Neo told her to shake the baby as he did, but not to be "very violent", in case it "damage the brain" and the boy "become autistic".

Gan replied that she shook Trevor's head "[almost] 180 degrees". To this, Neo replied: "Later stupid stupid only ma".

Gan also told Neo that the baby did not drink any milk as she shook him until "he damn shagged [already]".

Neo then told her to use her own method instead of shaking when he cries.

Later on, the couple brought Trevor to KKH where he was hospitalised from Jan. 18, 2024 to Jan. 23, 2024 for observation.

No injuries were found on Trevor following medical examinations. He was only 41 days old at this point.

Hit baby

On another occasion sometime before Feb. 18, 2024, Neo covered Trevor's nose and mouth with his hands for about a minute until the baby began vomiting milk and turning purple.

Neo told Gan that he did not want to take care of Trevor anymore, because he was afraid he would kill the baby.

Later, around Apr. 2, 2024, Trevor began crying while Neo was taking him to the nanny's house.

To stop him, Neo put his hand into the baby's mouth and dug around, which caused bleeding under his tongue.

The nanny later saw the injury and asked what happened. Neo lied that he did not know.

When the nanny noticed the bleeding, she insisted that Trevor be seen by a doctor.

The couple then took their son to KKH on Apr. 2, 2024.

A medical examination conducted on Trevor noted local trauma under his tongue with redness.

After they left the hospital, Neo admitted to Gan that it was in fact him who had dug into Trevor's mouth.

Between May and July 2024, about two to three times a month, Neo would also pinch Trevor’s fingers forcefully 20 to 30 times in front of Gan as he wanted to provoke a reaction from Trevor, which he found funny.

Gan did not stop Neo while witnessing the acts.

Between January and July 2024, on numerous occasions, Neo would hit Trevor's hand, thigh, buttocks, and chest.

In one text on Aug. 2, 2024, Neo told Gan: “Btw don’t hit baby at all until Tuesday, Ltr bring to dr, Dr say we abuse, Cause of the bruises.”

Abused wife

Neo also pleaded guilty to abusing Gan between February and August 2024.

The court heard that he had assaulted her at an arcade when he realised she did not wait for him to play a game.

In another incident, he punched her more than 10 times in the head after an argument about pouring lukewarm water into cereal.

Neo also hit her buttocks, stomach and thighs after finding texts she exchanged with a male friend about her intention to divorce Neo.

He also hit her at a bus stop after a trip overseas.

Neo has a prior offence for causing hurt to a toddler while riding an e-scooter when he was 20 years old and was placed on probation.

Cause of death

The prosecution said in court that a preliminary autopsy report stated Trevor's cause of death as cardiorespiratory failure pending further investigations.

However, the final cause of death was unascertained as no anatomical findings or injuries were pointing to a definitive finding of the cause of death.

An Institute of Mental Health (IMH) report revealed that Gan was found not to be suffering from any postpartum psychiatric disorder around March or April 2024.

However, based on information provided by Gan's mother, Gan was found to have been suffering from an adjustment disorder at the time of the offence, which could have had a minor contributory link to the offence.

She was also facing stress about work and money, in addition to stress from caring for Trevor.

However, the report stated that an adjustment disorder would not have impaired her ability to understand the risk of the actions she took.

As for Neo, he was found not to be suffering from any mental illness and not to be of unsound mind.

Neo's defence

The prosecution asked for 15 to 16 years for Neo, while the defence asked for seven years and seven weeks.

The defence claimed that Neo's culpability is less than Gan's.

The prosecution, however, noted that the harm caused is the same.

Neo stood by as the abuse occurred, Deputy Public Prosecutor (DPP) Terence Chua said, adding that Gan had learnt how to shake Trevor from Neo and he did not stop Gan because he himself was involved in abusing the baby.

He was also in the room on the day of the fatal abuse, Chua added.

On the abuse of Gan, Chua said Neo had hit Gan excessively on many occasions, but she did not lodge a police report.

Gan's defence

The prosecution sought at least 14 to 15 years’ imprisonment for Gan while her defence asked for 12.5 to 13 years' jail.

Gan's defence lawyer, Wong, started by noting that Gan had looked at Neo on the day of the fatal abuse and said: "How? You want the baby to die?"

At this point, Gan was close to her "final breaking point", Wong said.

He also noted that IMH had diagnosed Gan with adjustment disorder during her postpartum period, even though it was a minor contributory link.

He urged for the same adjustment disorder to apply to her ill-treatment charges.

Given that she was around 21 years old during the window of abuse, Wong said she "did not know better" and also did not know she was suffering from the adjustment disorder.

If she had known, she might have sought help then, Wong said.

Wong also added that Gan was not one to use violence, but it was normalised through the spousal violence she received from Neo.

The facts of the case are "clear" on who occupied a "dominant position" at home, Wong noted.

He also added that Gan has expressed remorse.

The case has been adjourned to Oct. 21, 2026.