[UA] "Hello Kitty" Gimp Murders

[Byers, Andy]

Two of my favorite tastes that taste great together: gimps and Hello Kitty.


'Hello Kitty' Murder Case Horrifies Hong Kong 

By Clay Chandler
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, December 9, 2000 ; Page A25 

HONG KONG, Dec. 8 -- A macabre murder case in which three men were accused
of torturing and killing a nightclub
hostess transfixed residents of Hong Kong, who were titillated by grisly
testimony and shocked that something so horrific could
happen in their crowded but relatively safe city.

"Never in Hong Kong in recent years has a court heard of such cruelty,
depravity, callousness, brutality, violence and
viciousness," said Hong Kong Justice Peter Nguyen, who sentenced the
defendants to life imprisonment Wednesday after they
were convicted of manslaughter. "The public is entitled to protection from
people such as you."

The case was dubbed the "Hello Kitty murder" in the press because the
victim's head was stuffed into a doll called Hello Kitty
that is wildly popular in Asia. It fascinated the 6 million residents of
this former British colony not only because of its lurid details
but also because of the juxtaposition of brutal crime and the cuddly icon.

"It's horrible, but it's so interesting," said Sandy Chan, a sales clerk at
an upscale boutique in Hong Kong's Central district,
acknowledging that she and many of her friends followed the case closely
from the start.

"That kind of thing, you think, 'Okay, it happens every day in New York--or
maybe on the mainland,' " said stylist Irene Chang.
"But not in Hong Kong. So people can't help it--they want to know."

Hong Kong's homicide rate--1.23 per 100,000 people--is among the lowest of
any major city in the world, according to the
University of Hong Kong's Center for Criminology. New York's murder rate,
despite recent declines, is nearly 15 times higher.

When a 13 year-old girl came to Hong Kong police in May 1999 complaining of
nightmares, investigators nearly dismissed as
teenage delusions her descriptions of a young mother, bound with electrical
wire and tortured. But a search of a third-floor flat
in Hong Kong's gritty Kowloon district turned up chilling evidence,
including the Hello Kitty doll with the severed head of
missing nightclub hostess Fan Man-yee.

Over the course of a six-week trial, concluded last month, the
girl--testifying in exchange for immunity and identified in court
documents as Ah Fong--told jurors how her boyfriend and two other men
abducted 23-year old Fan in March 1999 because
she had failed repay a $2,500 debt.

The three men--Chan Man-lok, 34; Leung Shing-cho, 27; and Leung Wai-lun,
21--held Fan captive for more than a month,
torturing her until she died, according to the teenage witness, who
acknowledged that she occasionally joined in the beatings.

Prosecutors charged that, after they killed Fan, the three men dismembered
her and disposed of her body parts with the
household trash. It is not clear why Fan's assailants sought to conceal her
skull by sewing it into the head of the Hello Kitty doll.

The three men were convicted of manslaughter rather than a harsher charge
because the jury ruled that Fan's remains offered
insufficient evidence to determine whether she was murdered or died from
some other cause such as a drug overdose.

In contrast to mainland China, where those found guilty of murder--as well
as lesser charges such as corruption--are speedily
executed, Hong Kong does not have a death penalty. The three men could be
eligible for parole in 20 years.

                                     © 2000 The Washington Post 



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