Ivana Smit allegedly took her own life. So why is gomen paying her family RM1.1mil?

Between last week’s rally drama, the haze making a comeback and a whole war happening between Cambodia and Thailand, it’s no surprise if this bit of news flew under your radar. But get this: The Malaysian government has just been ordered to pay RM1.1 million to the family of Ivana Smit, a Dutch teenager who died here eight years ago.

You might be wondering… what does this have to do with us? Why now? Why are we paying?

Well, that’s because a High Court judge basically called out our police for being so cincai in investigating her death, it was deemed an actual breach of duty. In plain English, they messed up so badly the government has to now compensate her family.

And this isn’t some random nobody. Ivana Smit was a model who was living the KL high life up until a night out with a married American couple ended with her dead and naked on a balcony several floors down. But before we get to the part with the luxury condo, the mystery fall, and the couple with a very open marriage, let’s rewind a little. Just who was Ivana Smit?

Like any other Malaysian, she grew up juggling school and 99 extracurricular activities

Ivana Esther Robert Smit wasn’t Malaysian by passport but ask anyone who knew her and they’d say she was a Penangite through and through. She was born in the Netherlands in 1999 to Dutch-Chinese-Indonesian heritage but her life took a major turn before she even hit kindergarten.

When she was just three, little Ivana missed her grandparents so badly she literally stopped eating. Her parents were also juggling hectic work schedules at the time, so her dad made the decision to put her on a plane to Penang where her grandparents, Hendrik Smit and Ho Sioe Tjoan, had just migrated. That’s where she would spend most of her childhood, right by the beaches of Batu Ferringhi.

From there, Ivana basically lived the life of your overachieving, multitalented anak Malaysia. She spoke fluent Mandarin, had a black belt in taekwondo, played football, guitar, piano and by 13, she was already walking runways in Korea and Taiwan. Her grandpa said she collected 35 different certificates from all the courses she attended. Thirty-five! Isshhh, some of us barely even passed SPM 😬

For a stretch of years, she shuttled between Malaysia and Europe a couple of times, both to visit her her parents and for modelling work. But by November 2017 she was back in KL for good. She had plans. She was even shortlisted for a modelling contest in Paris happening the following January.

But Ivana never made it to Paris.

Instead, she fell 14 floors to her death from a condo in the middle of KL

Her naked body was found on the 6th floor of CapSquare Residence on December 7th 2017. Earlier that night, she was with an American man, Alex Johnson, and his Kazakh wife, Luna Almazkyzy, who lived 14 floors up. And no, this wasn’t just some innocent tumpang tidur kind of sleepover, okay?

Ivana may have had a sheltered upbringing under her grandparents but by the time she returned to KL in late 2017, things had changed. She was more independent, more daring and as some reports and witnesses suggest, more entangled in KL’s flashy night life.

And the thing about the Johnsons was that they were as charming as they were rich. He was a crypto bro who’d been living in KL for a decade and she was his elegant, stylish wife who was pretty well-off herself. Together, they had a taste for lavish dinners, private parties and some pretty unconventional relationships. And by that, yes. Threesomes. They had those often.

From what investigators uncovered, Ivana first met the Johnsons in November 2017 through a mutual friend. One minute they were strangers, the next they were partying together, sending flirty texts and hooking up in five star hotels. On the night she died, the three of them started their evening at Mantra in Bangsar, then skipped over to place called 9 Club. It was around sunrise that they eventually ended up back at the Johnsons’ apartment.

At home, Luna (the wife) said Ivana was tipsy, but still joined her and her young daughter for breakfast. After sending the girl to school, the adults had sex. Luna and Alex passed out in the bedroom while Ivana stayed in the living room. The last time Luna saw her, Ivana was giggling and talking to herself. At about 1.25pm, Luna noticed that Ivana’s things were still there tho she was nowhere to be seen. Strangely, that didn’t alarm the Johnsons and they carried on as usual.

At 5pm, the police were knocking on their door.

 

So what really happened to Ivana Smit?

Well, to preface, you’d think eight years is enough time to tie things up with a bow. But the fact of the matter is the case is still as unsolved as ever. Was it suicide? Homicide? Or was it just a tragic accident? Depending on who you ask, whether the cops, Ivana’s family or the Johnsons, you’ll get three very different versions of what happened.

So to start, let’s talk about what we actually know for sure. Ivana had fallen 14 floors from the 20th to the 6th. At her inquest, it was revealed she had traces of cocaine, cannabis, alcohol and polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) in her system, the combined effect of which could have knocked her out cold. PMMA especially has very similar effects to ecstasy.

In the beginning, the police said there were no signs of foul play and whatever injury she sustained was just from the fall, but later on when a different doctor took a look at her, reports emerged that bruises were found on her body, and specifically bruises that suggested some serious force being used. Still, the Johnsons claimed innocence from the start. They insisted Ivana was alive and well when they all went to sleep and that she must have jumped (voluntarily).

But does that really add up? While no one can say for sure what happened in that condo, here are the most common theories floating around:

• The OD cover up: Ivana might have overdosed and in a panic, the Johnsons threw her off the balcony to make it look like a suicide. To support this theory, the Johnsons apparently instructed their housekeeper to clean the apartment while they were at the police station answering questions. Suspicious much?

• A fight gone wrong: Neighbours claimed they heard shouting that morning. So maybe an argument broke out and turned violent.

• She fell… but not by force: One of the more neutral theories is that Ivana may have climbed onto the balcony ledge while disoriented and high and lost her balance. This would line up with the high levels of drugs in her system and with the Johnsons’ version of events. But even if the fall was accidental, it’s still hella sus that two adults thought it was fine to sleep with a teen who was clearly out of her mind.

Unfortunately, the drama didn’t end there cos then came the part where the police got involved.

 

If there was a wrong way to handle a suspicious death, PDRM wrote the manual

So remember how the court ordered the Malaysia government to pay a million ringgit in compensation? Yeah, that didn’t come out of nowhere. In fact, you could say it’s the latest chapter in what’s basically been an 8 year long parade of police blunders.

Since 2017, the official version of Ivana Smit’s death has changed more times than a TikTok trend. It started with the police immediately calling it a suicide, followed by a coroner ruling it was a “misadventure” (which already contradicts suicide), then a 2019 High Court decision that it was actually “death by person or persons unknown” (read: murder) and now this recent ruling – that the police utterly failed in their duty.

And not just failed. The KL High Court called the whole investigation a “profound failure” of the enforcement system. Yikes. From the get go, they were handling things so badly it’s almost impressive in the worst way:

• Declaring it suicide almost immediately without a full investigation
• Leaving the scene unsecured so much so that the Johnsons got to call in a cleaner
• Forgetting key forensic basics like taking body temperature
• Ignoring grip marks and bruises that didn’t quite scream suicide
• Letting witnesses/suspects freely communicate
• Dismissing a Dutch forensic expert’s opinion as if he was at the inquest just to kepoh

All things considered, a million ringgit is probably not worth much after everything Ivana’s family had been through. Keep in mind that her mom had to drag the system kicking and screaming just to get them to admit they messed up. But with no new leads, no arrests and no real closure, is this really where the story ends?

 

The Ivana Smit case is being reopened for the second time

When the High Court threw out the police’s suicide verdict in 2019, it should have kickstarted a fresh investigation. But instead, it stalled and dragged and eventually, it faded into the background.

Fast forward to 2025, and the KL High Court has once again ordered the case to be reopened. This time, the police have stricter instructions. They’ll need to submit progress reports every three months to the Attorney-General’s Chambers (AGC), who will decide whether there’s finally enough to press charges.

Honestly though, it shouldn’t take two court rulings, foreign experts, and years of public pressure just to get the basics done. All we can hope is after eight long years, the very least Ivana’s family deserves is an investigation that actually goes somewhere.