A Thai national named Navarat Maykha was hanged in Singapore on this date in 1995 for drug-smuggling.

“An impoverished and uneducated woman, and also deeply religious, she swore until her death that she was unaware of the heroin that was hidden in the lining of a suitcase given to her by a Nigerian friend,” is the sad summation of this 2005 article about Singapore’s death penalty — which goes on to quote her attorney Peter Fernando on the injustice of the island

“It’s heartbreaking sometimes,” said Fernando during a recent interview from his office in Singapore. “If you are an addict, and you are simply sitting at home with more than 15 grams of heroin and you cannot prove with scientific accuracy that a portion of the drugs are for personal use, you will hang.”

This wasn’t the particular form of heartbreaking that applied to Navarat Maykha, who was persuaded by the aforementioned Nigerian friend to bring some clothes to a pal in Singapore. The luggage encasing said wardrobe had 3.19 kilos of heroin sewn into it.

* Most of the (few) citations for this case situate the hanging on September 28. However, Singapore always carries out its hangings on Friday … and in 1995, Friday was September 29.

On this day..

• 1832: William Hodkin, child rapist
• 1972: Helenira Rezende, Brazil guerrilla
• 1848: Harris Bell
• 1554: A false coiner and a masked dummy
• 1891: Ed Leeper and James Powell
• 1469: Humphrey and Charles Neville, Lancastrians
• 1893: Scuffletonians in Mt. Vernon, Georgia
• 1939: Pete Catalina and Angelo Agnes, Colorado murderers
• 1915: Thomas and Meeks Griffin, ancestors of Tom Joyner
• 1941: Babi Yar massacre begins
• 1503: Anacaona and the caciques of Xaragua
• 1979: Francisco Macías Nguema, President for Life