A particular murder case has been occupying plenty of minds recently. Last week, Hong Kong socialite Abby Choi (蔡天凤) was discovered to have been murdered by her ex-husband and former in-laws. However, what truly shocked the world was how gruesome the murder was.
Abby had reportedly been dismembered and her body parts scattered. To the horror of many, her head had been found in a pot of soup. Unfortunately, Abby’s gruesome murder isn’t the first of its kind. There has been several cases involving dismemberment in Hong Kong, with a few even being made into movies.
1. The Eight Immortals Restaurant Murders aka The Chinese Pork Bun Murders
In 1985, nine members of the Zheng family were cleaning their family restaurant when a man named Huang Zhiheng (黄志恒) stormed the restaurant. Huang was allegedly there to claim a debt, however, they were unable to pay. Huang reportedly took the youngest child, only 7 years old, hostage and ordered the rest to tie each other up. Unfortunately, things went wrong when one broke free and started screaming.
Huang killed the person by stabbing them in the neck with a broken beer bottle. He then killed the rest of the family, either with the broken bottle or by strangulation. Huang summoned the last family member who had not been present in the restaurant at the time and killed her too. Then, he dismembered the bodies in eight hours, separated the parts into bags and disposed of them by throwing them into the oceans and dumps.
He reportedly took over the restaurant afterwards and continued its operations. This led to rumours of him cooking his victims in pork buns to get rid of the evidence. However, several years later, police were able to pin the crime on him. Huang admitted to his crimes but committed suicide afterwards. The case was later made into a film “The Untold Story (八仙饭店之人肉叉烧包)” which fictionalised the murder, alluding to the pork bun rumours.
2. Yuen Long Estate Dismemberment Case
In 1998, murderer 陳強明 (transliteration: Chen Qiangming) returned to an apartment unit in Yuen Long. He brought with him the spoils of a recent operation and was splitting it among his gang. Unfortunately, the owner of the unit, 梁錦榮 (transliteration: Liang Jinrong), was spotted spying on the group.
Chen captured Liang and kept him bound in the unit. He was not given food and water. On 24th February, Chen’s accomplice discovered that Liang had been unconscious for too long. They soon realised he had passed away. Chen then cut Liang’s body up into 15 pieces and divided them into eight bags. He preserved the pieces with salt before dumping the bags into the unit’s garbage bin.
However, before he could get rid of the dismembered corpse, his accomplice was arrested by the police. Chen’s accomplice confessed to the crime which prompted the police to investigate the apartment. Chen was later arrested and sentenced to 18 years of prison.
3. The Hello Kitty Murder
In 1999, 23-year-old Fan Man-yee (樊敏儀) was working as a nightclub hostess when she made a mistake which cost her life. At that time, Fan, an orphan and a single mom, was struggling to support herself and her child. She then resorted to stealing from her clients to support herself. Unfortunately, Fan stole from triad member Chan Man-lok (陳文樂).
This led to Fan being kidnapped and imprisoned. During her captivity, Fan was tortured and raped. She eventually passed away, presumably from the trauma and her wounds. Chan and his accomplices then dismembered her body, boiled her flesh to hide the smell of decomposition and discarded the remains. However, her skull was sewn into the head of a large Hello Kitty stuffed toy.
A 13-year-old girl, a lover of one of the men, later reported the murder to the police. The men were sentenced to life imprisonment, with one having his sentenced reduced after a retrial to 18 years. During their sentencing, the judge reportedly told the men: “Never in Hong Kong in recent years has a court heard evidence of such cruelty, depravity, callousness, brutality, violence and viciousness.” The trio were also supposedly remorseless.
4. The Murder of Wong Ka-mui
Wong Ka-mui (王嘉梅) had only been seventeen when she was murdered. In 2008, Wong was working as a call girl to help support her family. One of her clients, a man named Ting Kai-tai (丁启泰), contacted for her services and requested they meet at an apartment.
Unfortunately, her meeting ended with her death. Ting allegedly killed her during their session and cut up her body. He flushed some of the remains down the toilet and meant to dispose the rest of her body in the sea. However, on his way to the pier, Ting mixed some of her flesh with meat at a nearby butcher’s shop. Her head and the rest of her remains were put into a Styrofoam box, weighed down with bricks and thrown into the sea.
Ting was eventually arrested, but police took longer to gather the rest of Wong’s body parts. The news however caused panic among citizens as many were concerned they had accidently consumed human flesh. The case was later made into a movie in 2015 called “Port of Call (踏血寻梅)”, starring Aaron Kwok (郭富城).
5. The Case Of The Mutilated Parents
In March 2013, an elderly couple, Glory Chau and Moon Siu, were murdered in a flat at Tai Kok Tsui. The murderer turned out to be their youngest son, Henry Chau (周凯亮) who did the deed with his friend Angus Tse (谢臻麒). According to their testimony, Henry had lured his parents to the flat before Angus allegedly slashed at Glory’s throat while he stabbed his father, Moon.
The duo then took care of the bodies by dismembering them before cooking, microwaving and salting the remains. The plan had reportedly been to disguise the bodies as char siu (barbecued pork). 29-year-old Henry then reported his parents missing and created a Facebook page to ask the public for help with the search. However, he was later caught after he confessed the killings to his friends in a Whatsapp group.
Henry claimed he had murdered his parents for their treatment towards him. He also blamed them for his failures in life. Henry was jailed for life in 2015 after the jury judged him guilty. Angus however was charged for preventing the lawful burial of the bodies. He only received a year of prison. In 2022, the case was adapted into “The Sparring Partner (正義迴廊)”.
6. 12-year-old Murdered By Her Mother
In 2017, neighbours were alarmed to discover blood seeping out of a house. When the police launched an investigation, they discovered a delirious woman and the remains of a body scattered about the place. They soon discovered that the body belonged to a 12-year-old girl, the daughter of the woman in the house.
The woman was reportedly a drug-addict. She had allegedly murdered her own daughter and dismembered her in order to hide her crimes. When the remains were discovered, the parts had already started decomposing. The mother was later sentenced to a mandatory life-long stay in a mental hospital due to her history of drug abuse and alleged mental illness.
Sources: Tan Tan News, Plataforma, South China Morning Post, Oriental Daily
