The Hello Kitty Murder in Hong Kong refers to the case of a night club hostess who was kidnapped and tortured in an apartment in Tsim Sha Tsui in 1999. She eventually died over a month later, either by drug overdose or at the hands of the abductors. She was decapitated and her head was put in a Hello Kitty doll, hence the name of the case.[1]
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A 23-year-old night club hostess by the name of Fan Man-yee (樊敏儀) was kidnapped by three men: 34-year-old Chan Man-lok (陳文樂), 27-year-old Leung Shing-cho (梁勝祖) and 21-year-old Leung Wai-lun (梁偉倫). They took her to an apartment at No. 31 Granville Road, Tsim Sha Tsui,[2] where they imprisoned her. They beat and tortured her daily over a debt dispute.[1][3]
After a month of imprisonment and torture, she was killed, dismembered and her skull was stuffed into a giant Hello Kitty mermaid doll. They discarded most of the other body parts. Only the woman's skull, one tooth and some internal organs were recovered.[3]
The killing was exposed after the 14-year-old girlfriend of one of the three perpetrators reported having continual dreams of being haunted by Fan's ghost.[1][3]
The murder quickly became a sensational story in the media.
The three men were convicted of manslaughter because the remains could not identify exactly how she died. They remain incarcerated.
Justice Peter Nguyen, who sentenced the trio, said, "Never in Hong Kong in recent years has a court heard of such cruelty, depravity, callousness, brutality, violence and viciousness." The trio was convicted of manslaughter and unlawful imprisonment by a jury of the Court of First Instance after a six-week trial. They revealed it to be one of the most gruesome cases in the territory.[3]
The publicity around the case resulted in the production and release of films that told the story. Both Human Pork Chop (烹屍之喪盡天良) and There Is a Secret in My Soup (人頭豆腐湯) were released in 2001.
An episode of the television series Bones, "The Girl in the Mask", involves finding the decapitated head of a young Japanese woman from an American escort service in a mask.