The Hello Kitty Murder
Fan Man-Yee (樊敏儀) was a nightclub hostess who was kidnapped, tortured and murder in a Hong Kong apartment, after her death she was decapitated and her head was hidden inside a Hello Kitty doll giving the case its nickname.
On 17th March 1999, three members of the triad, on organised crime syndicate, abducted Fan Man-Yee allegedly she had previously stolen Chan Man-Iok’s wallet and he wanted the money back with interest. The trio allegedly intended to force her to work as a sex worker to pay back her debts however what 34-year-old Chan Man-lok (陳文樂), 27-year-old Leung Shing-cho (梁勝祖), 21-year-old Leung Wai-lun (梁偉倫) and Chan’s 13-year-old girlfriend really subjected the woman to was far worse.
Fan was taken from her home to Chan’s apartment in Tsmin Sha Tsui, the trio abandoned their original plan and she was beaten and tortured daily for a month until she died. Chan’s young ‘girlfriend,’ who’s name has been suppressed testified she witnessed Fan’s abuse including her being kicked approximately 50 times and stated she also joined in with the torture stating it was ‘fun.’ The trio of men urinated in Fan’s mouth and forced her to drink Chan’s girlfriends’ faeces, they melted straws and dripped the scalding plastic on Fan’s feet before the girlfriend poured chilli oil onto the burns, they bound her wrists and hung her from the ceiling and beat her with metal pipes and table legs, all her fingers were broken. After being tortured for an entire month the young girlfriend discovered Fan was dead, while the men later claimed she died from a drug overdose it is far more likely she was murdered intentionally that day or died from her injuries, she had reportedly been falling in and out of consciousness prior to her death. After finding Fan’s body the men dismembered the corpse with a saw in the bath tub, cooked the remains to emit the odour of rotting human flesh and stuffed her head into a Hello Kitty mermaid doll and sewed it in.
Chan’s young girlfriend began to have nightmares and though she was being haunted by Fan’s spirit and believed the only way to be free was to confess to the police. When the young girlfriend went to the police, officers searched the apartment finding the doll containing the head and a bag containing her partially decomposed internal organs.
Only Fan’s skull, one tooth and some internal organs were ever found. The three men were convicted of manslaughter as the remains were deemed not sufficient to show whether Fan was murdered. The three men were sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 20 years, in 2020. The young girlfriend received immunity in exchange for her testimony.