In August 1996 a bag was found floating in the water at Chi Ma Wan, on the southern side of Lantau Island in Hong Kong. Inside was the body of Tam Ngan-hang, twenty-three, who had worked as a hostess. Seven months passed before anyone learned who had put her there.
In March 1997 Chan Ka-chun, then twenty-four, was arrested and led the police to two more bodies. Cheung Wah-mei, twenty-nine, had been suffocated with a pillow, as Tam had. Yu Wai-man, twenty-four, had fought back harder than the others and had been stabbed. All three were hostesses, and the killings came with robbery. A fourth woman, a twenty-nine-year-old masseuse, had been raped and marked for death, and she lived. Chan had telephoned her often, and she had believed he was her friend. Her evidence was central to the case against him.
He had not acted alone. Chan Ki-nang, twenty-nine, was tried with him and denied murdering two of the hostesses. A third man, Leung Sze-lai, twenty-three, pleaded guilty to raping the surviving woman three times and to plotting to rob her, and admitted the manslaughter of one of the hostesses. He also offered to testify against the other two, though in the end the prosecution did not call him.
Sentence was passed in the Court of First Instance on January 13, 1999. Chan Ki-nang's barrister, Michael Poll, cast his client as a weak pawn in a game run by Chan Ka-chun, and told the court that Chan Ki-nang had tried to persuade him the women did not have to be killed, and that Chan Ka-chun had insisted. Chan Ki-nang received two life terms. Leung was sentenced to twelve years, half what he would otherwise have faced, in recognition of his willingness to testify and of evidence he had given in another important case.
Chan Ka-chun, by then twenty-seven, had been convicted of the three murders and of plotting to kill the fourth woman. Mr. Justice Michael Burrell called him a cold-blooded killer whose offenses were unimaginable and gave him three life terms, with a further twenty-six years for twice raping the surviving woman, conspiring to murder her and conspiring to rob all four women. His barrister, Niall Stirling, told the court that his client still maintained he was innocent.
August 1996: the body of Tam Ngan-hang, twenty-three, is found in a bag floating at Chi Ma Wan on Lantau Island.
March 1997: Chan Ka-chun is arrested and leads police to the bodies of Cheung Wah-mei and Yu Wai-man.
January 13, 1999: convicted of three murders and of plotting to kill a fourth woman, he is sentenced to three life terms and a further twenty-six years.