RedHanded - Episode 117 - The Hello Kitty Murder: Fan Man-Yee

Episode Date: October 24, 2019

In May 1999 a scared 14 year old girl walked into a Hong Kong police station and told the confused officers that she was being terrorised by a ghost. At first the police didn’t take her seriously, but then she elaborated that the reason this ghost was haunting her, was because she had helped to torture a young woman named Fan Man-yee to death. The girl then led police to a flat in the city, and what they found there shocked even a nation going through an already unbelievably violent decade... Store now open for Spooky Bitch merch: redhandedshop.com (Yes, we do ship internationally!) https://www.ranker.com/list/hello-kitty-murder-facts/cat-mcauliffe https://allthatsinteresting.com/hello-kitty-murder https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/article/3011932/hong-kong-hello-kitty-murder-meth-paranoia-or-product-violent-decade-and https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/article/1858067/five-hong-kong-most-notorious-crimes-80s http://www.the13thfloor.tv/2016/09/12/the-horrifying-true-story-of-the-hello-kitty-murder/ https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-49071502 https://china-underground.com/2012/10/24/the-hello-kitty-murder/ https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/article/3011932/hong-kong-hello-kitty-murder-meth-paranoia-or-product-violent-decade-and   See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Red Handed early and ad-free. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Get ready for Las Vegas-style action at BetMGM, the king of online casinos. Enjoy casino games at your fingertips with the same Vegas strip excitement MGM is famous for when you play classics like MGM Grand Millions or popular games like Blackjack, Baccarat and Roulette. With our ever-growing library of digital slot games, a large selection of online table games and signature BetMGM service, there's no better way to bring the excitement and ambiance of Las Vegas home to you than with BetMGM Casino. Download the BetMGM Casino app today.

BetMGM and GameSense remind you to play responsibly. BetMGM.com for terms and conditions. 19 plus to wager. Ontario only. Please play responsibly. If you have any questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact ConnexOntario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor. Free of charge.

BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. They say Hollywood is where dreams are made. A seductive city where many flock to get rich, be adored, and capture America's heart. But when the spotlight turns off, fame, fortune, and lives can disappear in an instant. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Saruti. I'm Hannah.

And welcome to Red Handed. Do we do merch announcement? It is once again your opportunity to get some spooky bitch merch. Lots of people have been asking about it on social media, so I have devised a step-by-step explanation for what you guys need to do. Everybody ready? Everybody listening? Good. So, what is the date that this is coming? This is the date that the merch shop has gone live. Officially, it is now live. It is the 24th

of October. Merch shop is live. Please head over to redhandedshop.com. There, if you were good enough to have given us your email address already, you will have today received an email from us with a discount code. Go dig that up. Go hit the shop. If you didn't, it's okay. It was only 10%. Go buy some stuff anyway. And apart from that, the merch shop is going to be open with Spooky Bitch merch until the end of November. After that, it's going away again.

So no excuses. That's it. Exactly. And if you are a Patreon supporter, you will receive a separate email with a different code that lasts slightly longer. You don't need to give us your email for that. We've already got that. So don't worry about that. It's on the way to you.

So, spooky bitch merch announcement done. Any other announcements or... Any other business, AOB? We were in a very funny meeting the other day when that was on the end of the agenda. We were like, what does that mean? AOB? No, I don't think I've got any AOBs. Well, that's good because we've got one hell of a fucking case for you guys today

in honour of it being very nearly Halloween. So let's go because we're headed to Hong Kong in the 90s this week and a chill period in time, this most definitely was not. That decade, Hong Kong was going through an absolute epidemic of gang-related violence. It was a time dominated by gangsters and the likes of the Chinese triads. Nowadays, Hong Kong has some of the lowest crime rates in the world, apart from obviously all of the protesting and stuff that is going on there right now. Yeah, it's fucking popping off at the moment. I mean, that is the

word. It is popping off in Hong Kong right now. But apart from that, generally speaking, it is seen as one of the safest sort of country cities in the world at the moment. But in the 90s, it seems to have been all out street warfare, with gang members armed with AK-47s fighting it out with often ill-equipped police, like on the streets, like in the suburbs even. There wasn't this like, oh, that's the bad neighbourhood. It seems to have just been happening anywhere and everywhere. And at that time, it was mainly violent bank robberies and heists that made up the majority of the crime that occurred. Some of the big players about town were the likes of, and these are just some great names, Broken Tooth, Big Spender, and my personal favourite, Teeth Dog.

I mean, you really feel like maybe it lost something in translation. Maybe it sounds scarier in Cantonese. Teeth Dog. I don't know what my triad name would be. Flathead. Definitely Flat flathead is it like you work it out like i used to work out your porn name your first pet and the name of the street that you first lived on yeah i think mine was i have a great one what's yours it's i promise you it's not bullshit brandy saint anne's i don't know the name of the first street I lived on. So I didn't live there for very long.

That was the first street I remember living on. So go with that. Oh, okay. In which case it's Goldie Gaten. Brandy St. Anne's and Goldie Gaten. Let's just start doing this podcast under those names instead. It'll be great. Saruti Bala and Hannahannah mcguire are dead we've killed them wow amazing so yeah if this was a visual format there would just be like a technical difficulty sign that would pop up right now because hannah's having a meltdown yeah just that little girl with the clown

anyway anyway so back to the story. Obviously, we're talking a lot about the kind of triads and things like that. And our case today does involve members of a triad. But you'll be glad to know that it doesn't focus on a bank robbery. I find organised crime really not that particularly interesting. And I especially find bank robberies really not that interesting. Yeah I know what you mean I did an essay on Yakuza when I was studying Japan as my ethnographic area of study because I'm a serious anthropologist and I think but I'm just more interested in tattoos more than anything so like that's why I did Yakuza and then when I was in Osaka there was my friend speaks really good Japanese and we're in this bar with just this one guy and i've written or i just written it or something so i was talking to this japanese guy about yakuza

and he was like oh like the old guys the yakuza that come in here like they're just here to drink like they're not here to cause any trouble but the young guys they're fucking scary because they've got something to prove like definitely this has got very similar vibes to like the junko furuta case we do talk about that later that was like one of the guys that was in that was a member of the Yakuza. It is related. The triad and triad members are most definitely involved in today's case. But what's really interesting as well with the whole triad business is we do all too often kind of romanticize and glamorize gangsters and the mafia and organized crime. Like it's not really crime and it's kind of like, oh, this is happening, but it's like they're just robbing banks. But let's be real, because some of the biggest revenue streams for organised crime these days, and probably for as long as ever,

is sex trafficking, sex slavery and drug dealing. It's not just like, oh, they're just robbing some banks. Oh, no, this is filthy stuff. And that's really where our story today has its roots and it was probably the worst crime that occurred in Hong Kong in the 90s which considering what a violent decade it was is saying something. So before we crack on let's clarify what we mean when we talk about the triads. What are they? Who are they? What do they look like? Triads are gangs that began as secret societies and trade associations that banded together to protect their turf and businesses, both legal and illegal. A triad is a branch of a mafia-like organized crime group, and they're based in places like Hong Kong, China, Taiwan.

You can also see some in Soho in London, if you know where to look. The most powerful apparently operate in Hong Kong. And there used to be hundreds of triads in Hong Kong, but now their numbers have fallen to just a handful of very powerful gangs. So they do seem to be solely money-motivated rather than politically driven, but saying that they have been known to form alliances with the government and the police in Hong Kong to quash pro-democracy rallies and protests, often through violence. Federico Verisi, a professor of criminology and an expert on organized crime at

the University of Oxford, said in an interview with the BBC that, quote, Hong Kong triads are very localized mafia groups with their own established rules and rituals. They usually run protection rackets, prostitution and petty drug dealings. They are not international organizations, but are very much present in some local neighborhoods. So now that we understand what a triad is, let's get back to our story. In 1997, Fan Man Yee was a 23-year-old hostess working at a nightclub in Hong Kong. And hostesses are not sex workers. Table service, right? Right. Well, yeah, it's kind of like the girlfriend experience without the sex bit. It's what Lucy Blackman was doing. Some hostesses are sex workers, but not all of them. You can go and be a hostess and earn good money without having to actually sleep with anyone.

I'm sure you would get propositioned, but it's not a requirement, I assume, of what she was doing. But Man Yee had already had a difficult life. And by 23, she already felt pretty alone in the world. Her family had abandoned her as a child, and she had been raised in a care home. And so with a seemingly hopeless life stretching in front of her, Fan Manyi became addicted to drugs at a very young age. As a teenager, she was working at a place called the Empress Karaoke Nightclub, where she met her future husband. He too was a drug addict, and their marriage was most definitely not a happy one. There were often complaints made by their neighbours about potential domestic violence

in the home, but in May 1996, Man Yee gave birth to a son. But she was still struggling with her drug addiction, so to support her habit and her husband's, Man Yee was forced to turn to sex work. And of course, the sex work scene in Hong Kong was dominated by the triads. And when Man Yee entered this world, she fell into the hands of 36-year-old pimp, drug dealer, and all-round prick, Chan Man Lok. Chan was successful in the game and was making good money selling women and selling drugs. He had a huge apartment in town and was of course flash with his cash. The two had met originally when Man Yee was working at a brothel in Hong Kong called Romance Villa and Chan became a regular client of hers. One day and what I can only imagine was an act of sheer desperation, Man Yee stole Chan's wallet. A wallet which contained 4,000 Hong Kong dollars. And this would prove to be the worst decision of Man Yee's life.

Chan was furious when he realized what had happened and he immediately knew who had taken his money. By this point, Man Yee had clearly realized what an error she'd made in stealing from Chan, so she tried to return the wallet with not just the original $4,000 in it, but with an extra $10,000 thrown in as an apology. But Chan wasn't having any of it, and he ordered two members of his gang, Leung Sing Cho and Leung Wah Lun,

to find Man Lee. Chan said that he was going to force Man Lee into prostitution again until she repaid him whatever amount he would decide would suffice. So the men found Man Yi and took her back to Chan's flat. Sing Cho, Wai Lun and Chang Man Lok then took a shit ton of meth and began taking turns in assaulting the terrified Man Yi.. At which point, a young girl entered the room. Now this girl goes on to play a major role in this case. But obviously due to her age at the time, because she was just 13, her name was not released. Some places we read called her Melody, some called her Ah Fong, and some called her Ling. I tried to think of like a different name that we could call her, but I don't know why, it just really stuck with me

and I just felt like she's a Ling, so we're going to call her Ling. And also like, why give her an English name, man? Like, come on. Exactly. So we're going to call her Ling. And as we said, Ling was just 13 years old when she walked into that room that day. And she had been living with Chan. And although he was old enough to be her father at 36 years old when she walked into that room that day and she had been living with Chan and although he was old enough to be her father at 36 years old that was most definitely not the situation here.

Much like Man Yi, Ling had had a shitty life and at just 13 she'd run away from her abusive home. She had run to the city where one night she'd met an 18-year-old boy in a suit dripping with gold jewelry. This man was Lung Wei Lun, one of Chan's lackeys now involved with Man Yi's abduction. But when he had met Ling that night, he had introduced himself to her as Gangster. Good name, good name. And as an impressionable 13-year-old, Ling thought how glamorous it would be to be connected with a triad member. And soon after this encounter with Gangster, she was introduced to Chan Man Lok and moved into his flat. Chan's apartment was a grand affair. It was a huge five-bedroom flat on Granville Road in Kowloon,

which is in the northern part of Hong Kong. I don't know if you've seen I know you have but collectively to the the world that we're speaking to there's an article that's about like matchbox apartments in Hong Kong and like people who are literally living in like five square feet and those cages and stuff exactly so the fact that he's got a five bedroom apartment in Hong Kong shows how rich he is some reports even say it's seven bedroom. And I was like, I don't know. It's either five bedroom, six bedroom, seven. It's fucking got a shit ton of bedrooms. That's the key thing. Yeah, which so he's got the serious money going on. And some places

seem to imply that his apartment was in a nice part of town and others call it run down. So we're not really sure what the actual state of his neighborhood was. But since culturetrip.com now describes this area as the, quote, edgier and more authentic part of Hong Kong, we're going to hazard a guess to say that in the 90s it probably was run down. If Culture Trip are calling it edgy, it probably was a fucking shithole. In 2019, they're like, it's so edgy and authentic. I'm like, okay, so 20, 30 years ago, it was a shithole, I'm guessing. And that makes sense, given what we're about to tell you about what went down in that exact flat

and also why the neighbours didn't raise the alarm. But whether it's a nice part of town or not, the flat is weird, to say the least. Oddly for a man in his mid to late 30s, Chan had a very strong Hello Kitty aesthetic in his flat, which seems absolutely bizarre to me. Like, not only is he in his mid 30s, he's a fucking gangster. Like, why is that what you're going for? I mean, it just screams of being so incredibly sinister to me. And in the pictures of the, like, flat before,

there aren't that many, but you can see what there is. And also Ling does testify to what was there. He's got all this fucking Hello Kitty shit. I mean, it's like serious dedication to the vibe. He had a bunch of like Hello Kitty dolls, curtains, bedding, everything. And also in the flat, alongside all of this Hello Kitty shit was a lot of drugs and pornography. For me, it's so sinister because it screams of being like a Neverland for young Asian girls. And he's grooming them. That's what it feels like to me. Yeah, you're right.

He's big in gangsters. Like you said, he's making money selling drugs and selling women. I think he would have been like, get them in, get them young, lure them in with the money. But also like, what do young girls in Hong Kong like? To stick a load of fucking Hello Kitty shit everywhere so I think that it's safe to say we can assume what Chan is doing to Ling and why she's in his flat but some reports genuinely say reports like written now not written even back then written now genuinely say that Ling loved her life with Chan and that she eagerly joined in on the torture. Okay, we don't know. But let's clarify. She is 13 years old. She is a child who was quite obviously being sexually abused and

raped by a 36-year-old man. She fled from an abusive home and came to the city and ended up in this scenario. She hasn't even got a support network. She fled from an abusive home and came to the city and ended up in this scenario. She hasn't even got a support network. She hasn't got anybody to go to if anything does become too much. She's there. He's not her fucking lover. And she's not his teenage girlfriend. As honestly, some bizarre reports and articles that I read seem to suggest he's her abuser, like, and her pimp, probably, like, that's what's going on. And I can't believe that we still have to say things like this, like, even now. But genuinely, a Ranker article I read, which will be linked in the episode description, so you can go read it yourself, said teenage girlfriend. And I don't just want to point fingers at Ranker because

loads of them are doing it. And I was just like like it didn't strike anyone as odd that kind of turner phrase no she's 13 13 are you fucking serious that's like what year eight yeah fucking just about like jesus it's unbelievable they genuinely call her his teenage girlfriend. Try harder, be better is all I've got to say about that. But anyway, let's try not to clip quite so much, Hannah. Back to Man Yee and the attack that she was suffering. Like we said, the three men and probably young Ling were high on methamphetamine, which some people call ice. And we've discussed the phenomenon of drug-induced psychosis in the past,

specifically when we did Suzanne Capper. We did that one ages ago, but it really is so reminiscent of this case. But I do think it bears mentioning again because most studies do show a clear link between violence and aggression and a prolonged use of ice. And Chan, a.k.a. the Ice King, had most definitely been getting high off his own supply for years. ChinaUnderground.com reported on this case and shared a quote that an ice user had given to a Hong Kong government report on the effects of methamphetamine. And they said, this person said, quote, when I'm iced, all the normal rules of society slip away. Everything is so simple. I just want sex and violence and I don't care how I get it. I'm a PlayStation superhero and the world is my video game."

So as these men beat Man Yee, their plan to force her into sex slavery seems to have gone out of the window. No one is going to pay top dollar for a battered and bruised sex worker. So I suppose they just decided that they were having far too much fun torturing Man Yee and so this was now how she was going to repay her debt to them. And like on meth as well, it does make sense that it does make you sort of turn into that way. Like the description that that person gives that you just read out from ChinaUnderground.com of how it makes them feel, because that's like specifically what it was designed to do. I think most people will know, and there's some really interesting reading out there to do about it,

but meth was made by the Nazis so they could give it to their soldiers so they could just keep fighting and fighting and fighting and be brutal. And their pilots stay awake. Exactly. With the help of Bayer. So thanks very much, Bayer.

Good work. But yeah, it makes sense that it would make you be increased in aggression, in violence, because that's specifically what it was designed to do. But with all of that said, we've set the scene for what's going on now and Man Yee is very much at the mercy of these three men. And what happened to Man Yee and what we're going to discuss next is extremely graphic, so you've been warned. The men seemed to slip into a mad world of torture. They barely left the flat, just taking it in turns to torture Man Yee, play video games and take more meth. They forced Man Yee to pretend that she liked it when they beat her, forcing her to laugh and

smile and dance. And if she didn't, they'd beat her harder. The beatings and the rape were a daily occurrence at first, but then things started to escalate. Perhaps as with drugs, the men needed the violence to increase in order to get the same kick. The group then started to burn disposable straws and pour the melting plastic over Man Yee's feet. Her skin would blister and ooze from the burns, and after growing bored of the straws they started to burn Man Yi's feet directly with the fire and then they would beat her charred limbs. They would then pour chili oil into the wounds and urinate into her mouth. One day horrifyingly they even made Ling defecate into a box and then they forced Man Yi to eat her. Soon after, they started to

suspend Man Yi from the ceiling with wires and they beat her with metal pipes until her body was totally broken. Sometimes they'd leave her hanging all night long just by her wrists. The gang kept Man Yi in the flat for a month, torturing her, until finally one night she passed away and it was Ling who found her. The men carried Man Yi's body into the bathroom, placed her in the bathtub and then dismembered her with a saw. But then they realised that they still had a problem. How were they going to dispose of these remains before they started to decompose? So in a ghoulish step, they cooked all of Man Yee's remains and started to throw them out with the rubbish. But they kept hold of her head and boiled it in a pot on the stove.

At one point they were boiling this very pot filled with her head on the stove next to a pot with food that they were cooking and they were using the same spoon to stir both the food and the head. That seems completely bizarre to me. And also, if you're on fucking methamphetamine, you ain't eating. Like, I don't understand. I always think about that, like, whenever I watch Scarface, where, like, they're always in, like, restaurants having dinner and having big conversations.

I'm like, you've just done so much cocaine. Like, you're off your fucking nut, mate. There is no way you are eating that spaghetti. There is absolutely no way it's a hell of a drug and then it gets it gets even worse uh for reasons i'm not convinced that even the people involved absolutely know they tore open one of the many hello kitty dolls in the apartment and then they shoved the boiled skull inside the head of this doll and sewed it back up and you can see this doll in pictures it's a giant hello kitty mermaid stuffed toy and in the pictures that you can look on online quite easily almost too easily i think it's so dirty and gross and that's because inside it there is an entire human fucking head this is something

that really like turns my stomach about dirty stuffed animals. Ooh. Plush toys that are dirty. Yeah. When you see a child just holding like a dirty stuffed... I'm just like, whoa. No. But they're covered in germs anyway, even if they don't have a head inside them.

So aside from her head inside this Hello Kitty doll, the gang also kept a tooth and some of Man Yee's organs in a plastic bag in the fridge. Yep. So there you go. That's what was happening. That's what was going down. Shall we have a quick palate cleanse?

Let's. So I know that you know this because I told you when I was very excited that I'd found out and you were like, oh, I know. I was like, fine. But maybe the people don't know. Only because of RuPaul's Drag Race. That the only reason I know well actually loads of people who listen to this also watch RuPaul's Drag Show so I'm sure they already obviously know but did you

just call it RuPaul's Drag Show you're cancelled I cancel you oh enough of your fucking cancel culture world. I'm done with it. Anyway, the fun palate cleanse that I had was that in 2014, the creator of Hello Kitty revealed that she's not actually a cat, but in fact, a little girl from London. What? She's got whiskers and ears. I also wonder whether that was originally the plan or the creator was just like, I'm going to fuck some shit up. I think so. But I'm like, creator, do you know what you're doing? Because there are some people out there who are fucking nuts and they're obsessed with this shit. Because after I read about that, I then fell down a

completely sort of bizarre rabbit hole and watched YouTube videos on, quote, Is Hello Kitty Satanic? That is an actual YouTube video that you can go find. And apparently some people think that Hello Kitty is the devil because she has inspired fights between fans trying to buy her shit in shops. What?

I can't imagine caring that much about anything that I would punch someone for it. It must be then because she's satanic that she's convincing these people to do it. Oh, clearly. It's not because people have a consumer problem. It's not because we're forced into this capitalist world, unbeknownst to us, and forced to consume.

It's nothing to do with that. And if you're thinking that they're talking about children, oh no. We're talking about legitimate adults here. And there are adults being interviewed in these videos who have stopped from what is, I presume, a busy day for them to stop and have a chat with this person with a camera and a mic and talk very seriously about Hello Kitty. If you're serious about Hello Kitty, are you ever that busy? That's what I wonder.

This is true. This is true. You're right. And on top of that, I then also found out that there is a website called Hello Kitty Hell, which is www.kittyhell.com. So there you go. Have fun. And The Guardian actually reviewed that page. It wasn't a very in-depth review, but there is a page on the Guardian website that is called Internet Review Hello Kitty Hell. And I'm just baffled. I'm absolutely baffled. Come on, Guardian. I can throw a dog a bone over here. Jesus. Yeah, I know. Do you want to feature us? Do you want to review

us? No? Hello Kitty hell? Okay. I mean, maybe they're just making big inroads in Asia and that's just clickbait all day long. I mean, maybe. Because they don't have a paywall like all of the other ones. They've got to make that money somewhere. They do. And then just shame you at the end of every article that you've read. But I have to say, I know that was meant to be a palate cleanser but after i read that even after the torture i had to take a break after this because i was like what is the world who are these adult women talking about hello kitty fucking hell but anyway back to our story and like we mentioned at the start of today's show this is very sort of reminiscent of the junker

fruta case that happened in Japan. And actually, whenever people ask me about the Junko Furuta case, I do say that it's cases like this that make me wish that ghosts were real, so that they would come back and just haunt the fuck out of their killer. Because in the Junko Furuta case, they basically just like totally got away with it. And they're like out now. And I just wish there was like some, I know what you did last summer, visceral, ghostly retribution coming for them. And in this case, that really did happen, apparently. Well, either it was Man Yi's ghost, or it was the trauma, or the guilt, or all of the drugs and the abuse. But whatever it was, young Ling started to feel a presence.

She became convinced that Man Yi's tortured spirit was haunting her and she began having incredibly violent nightmares. Ling finally convinced herself that the only way to make it all stop was by going to the police and confessing to everything. So in May 1999, a now 14-year-old Ling going to the police and confessing to everything. So in May 1999, a now 14-year-old Ling went to the Hong Kong police and told them that she was being haunted by the ghost of a tortured woman. At first, the police were quite obviously just like, fuck off, that's not true, you tiny child. But when Ling explained that it was the ghost of a

woman that she'd helped to kill and dispose of the police started to pay a little bit more attention. Ling gave them the address of Chan's Granville Street flat so they went to investigate and at this point you do have to think that Ling really must have been absolutely fucking terrified of whatever she thought was haunting her because she saw what those men did to Man Yee and she still went to the police. She must have thought, like, I'm literally going to die unless I do this. And when the police officers got to the flat, they found it empty. The men had already fled and they'd stripped the place. So there really wasn't much left to point towards what had happened there.

But the gang, for some reason, had left behind a vital piece of evidence. They'd left behind the terrifying Hello Kitty doll with the boiled head inside it. The creator of Hello Kitty, again, just fucking with us, they're just a big fat troll, I feel like, because they rather whimsically describe Hello Kitty, the now little girl from London,

as being as tall as five apples and as heavy as three. That's not how weight works. No, I don't know. Why is it in apple form? What are you teaching kids? And why is she less heavy than she is long? Don't know. She's a little cat girl, maybe. I don't know. But I do know one thing, that that fucking mermaid Hello Kitty doll they found in that flat definitely was heavier than three apples.

That's for sure. Yeah, it has it, I guess, yeah. Why the fuck, when they've left the flat, they've taken most things from there, why did they leave the doll with the head in it in the flat that directly points to what they'd done? They disposed of the whole body so meticulously, but they just left the head behind in the flat. I find that really weird. Like, I don't understand. It is.

It does seem like the one thing you leave behind is the thing that proves what you've done seems to be odd but maybe I mean they're super fucked up maybe they just forgot yeah that is also very likely you know when you put something away in a really safe place and then you forget where you put it maybe that's what happened here oh yeah maybe I know I've put it somewhere I feel like it's inside something maybe in a drawer maybe under under something. Is it where? I remember sewing something. Maybe it's in the lining of my coat. Oh, it doesn't matter. Let's just leave. They say Hollywood is where dreams are made. A seductive city where many flock to get rich, be adored and capture America's heart. But when the spotlight turns off, fame, fortune, and lives can disappear

in an instant. When TV producer Roy Radin was found dead in a canyon near L.A. in 1983, there were many questions surrounding his death. The last person seen with him was Lainey Jacobs, a seductive cocaine dealer who desperately wanted to be part of the Hollywood elite. Together, they were trying to break into the movie industry. But things took a dark turn when a million dollars worth of cocaine and cash went missing. From Wondery comes a new season of the hit show Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts

you can binge all episodes of The Cotton Club Murder early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus I'm Jake Warren and in our first season of Finding I set out on a very personal quest to find the woman

who saved my mum's life you can listen to Finding Natasha right now exclusively on Wondery Plus in season two I found myself caught up in a new journey to help someone I've never even met. But a couple of years ago, I came across a social media post by a person named Loti.

It read in part, Three years ago today that I attempted to jump off this bridge, but this wasn't my time to go. A gentleman named Andy saved my life. I still haven't found him. This is a story that I came across purely by chance, but it instantly moved me and it's taken me to a place where I've had to consider some deeper issues around mental health. This is season two of Finding, and this time, if all goes to plan, we'll be finding Andy. You can listen to Finding Andy and Finding Natasha exclusively

and ad-free on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Harvard is the oldest and richest university in America. But when a social media-fueled fight over Harvard and its new president broke out last fall, that was no protection. Claudine Gay is now gone. We've exposed the DEI regime and there's much more to come. This is The Harvard Plan, a special series from the Boston Globe and WNYC's On The Media. To listen, subscribe to On The Media wherever you get your podcasts. But anyway, so now the police obviously do believe ling and she agreed to testify against chan

lun ching cho and lung wei lun in exchange for immunity from prosecution and we obviously do complain about plea deals in other situations but like those are the fucking big guys they're the ones that they need to go after so yes and she's also a child so due to the fact that these men had dismembered and disposed of man yee's remains everything that we have told you so far and everything that the jury heard at trial was all from the testimony of ling because they've like chopped this body up and completely disposed of it everywhere no one really knows what torture exactly happened to her. This is all from Ling's testimony.

And also, like, the fully grown men who are triad members, they will have gone through police interrogation before. Like, they will know how to not give anything away. 100%. 100%. They're not children. Like, the two lackeys, Shin Cho and Wei Lung, they are quite young. But Chan is 36. He's been around the block.

He knows what he's doing. But so as we said, Ling obviously becomes the sort of star witness for the prosecution at this trial. And she told the court, quote, they beat her talking about Man Yi all the time. They beat her when they got bored. They beat her just for laughs. She also admitted that every now and again, that she too would join in with the torture. But she said that she liked Man Yee and that she got on well with her, but she still confessed to having burnt her and hit her with the men.

When she was asked why, Ling told the court in a flat voice with a deadpan face, quote, well, I did it for fun, just to see what it was like to hurt someone. She's a kid, man. Like, she's been such an abusive home. And she's been abused by these guys. The rage that she probably would have felt, you know, linking it to things like the McDonald triad, where people are like, cruelty to animals, this is indicative of this.

It's usually indicative of the fact that that child is going through some shit. And they're angry. Yeah, it's child of rage. It's exactly what it is. Exactly. It was a compelling testimony. And given the state of the head, it was clear that something sadistic had happened and that Man Yee, without a doubt, suffered greatly. But given that there was no body, the real cause of death could not be identified.

The men told the court that Man Yee had died of a self-administered drug overdose and that they had just panicked and disposed of her body. They claimed that they were innocent of murder and only guilty of the lesser crime of denying Man Yi a lawful burial. Obviously, this is total bollocks, but without a body and only the testimony of a child to go on, nobody could prove the murder. So in December 2000, Chan, Leung Ching-chou and Leung Hwa-lun were found guilty of manslaughter and sentenced to life with the possibility of parole after 20 years. So if you want your real spooky Halloween scare, that is next year. And if you're wondering why on earth it's manslaughter rather than murder, it's explained as such because the jury felt that the group's intent wasn't murder. Ling had testified to all they had done to Man Yee but had said that no one had intended to kill her. And it was all just because Man Yee owed Chan

money. So let's quickly discuss the way in which the law works on murder trials here in the UK and in Hong Kong. Firstly, let's clarify that Hong Kong has a separate legal system to China and one based on English common law and local legislation. Because colonialism. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. So it makes sense that it would be a similar-ish system in Hong Kong to the one that we have here in the UK. Hong Kong was, after all, only handed back by the British to China in 1997,

just two years before this trial took place. So it does appear that Hong Kong, just like the UK, doesn't have degrees of murder available in the justice system. So we don't have first-degree or second-degree murder like you do in the US. Here and in Hong Kong, it's murder or it's manslaughter. And if you've listened to our Ruth Ellis episode, The Last Woman Ever to be Hanged in Britain, you will already know this. But the only time in British history that we have even entertained the ideas of degrees of murder was when the Homicide Act was passed in 1957, which kind of meant that some murders were death penalty and some murders were not.

But that didn't last very long. In 1964, Peter Allen and Gwen Evans were hanged and they were the last ever people to be executed in Britain. And the next year after that, so in 1965, the death penalty was abolished in the UK totally. Initially on a five-year trial period, but it did eventually, after those five years, become abolished. And that meant that the degrees of murder system went with it because the only reason that we had the degrees of murder kicking around in the first place

was that some were death penalty worthy and some were not. And once the death penalty was gone, there was no point in having it anymore. So degrees of murder do not exist in the first place was that some were death penalty worthy and some were not. And once the death penalty was gone, there was no point in having it anymore. So degrees of murder do not exist in the UK. It's an American thing. And I think it is very easily confused because we're so, especially us like true crime people, we're so overwhelmed with the American system that I definitely for ages assumed that we had degrees of murder in the UK, but we don't. Yeah, same here. Absolutely. So yeah, like I said here, like Hannah's explained, here in the UK, it's either murder or it's manslaughter. There's no sort of degrees within that that you can dig

around within. And for a murder conviction, in court, intent must be proven so that the accused intended to kill, intended to murder the victim. So with manslaughter, this is defined as taking an action that one wouldn't necessarily intend or expect death to be the outcome. So it could be an unintentional killing that results from recklessness, negligence, an unlawful act, diminished responsibility, or a loss of control. The act must be one which any reasonable person could realise, would realise could subject the victim to the risk of control. The act must be one which any reasonable person could realise, would realise could subject the victim to the risk of harm. So let's examine this properly. And I suppose what they are saying is that they had no way of proving that the gang intended to kill Man Yee,

but their unlawful act of torturing her and keeping her prisoner, because yes, two of the three men also admitted to false imprisonment, put her at risk of harm. But they also said that it was their taking drugs that had ultimately killed Man Yee, and they said that she did that to herself. And although there was no body to prove that that's what had happened, it does seem that the jury and the judge believed Ling's testimony of the torture. Because, for example, during sentencing, Justice Peter Wen said,

quote, never in Hong Kong in recent years has a court heard of such cruelty, depravity, callousness, brutality, violence, and viciousness. So the court clearly believed that Man Yee was tortured. They just couldn't prove that the torture was what killed her or that through that torture the gang intended to kill her i think also potentially the only thing that stopped them getting the murder conviction is because the body wasn't present to see the damage that was done and the jury went with manslaughter rather than murder because the defense was able to argue that it was the drugs that she herself had taken that had killed Man Yee and not the gang. Though it does seem remarkable because with that sort of statement that the judge makes during sentencing, they all clearly believe Ling's testimony that they had tortured

Man Yee. So it's like we're saying we believe that you tortured her, but we still can't prove that it wasn't the drugs that she took that had killed her. Like, it's really difficult. And I feel like my head was sort of spinning reading about this one. And also how hard they tried to find her like cooked up body parts. But I wonder if they'd been cooked, whether you'd be able to get any toxicology out of them anyway. Probably not. Probably not. But I do also think that they did have the bag of organs because they found the tooth and they found the bag of organs

and they found the skull. Could they not have tested the bag of organs because they found the tooth and they found the bag of organs and they found the skull could they not have tested the bag of organs does that disintegrate yeah and you know do toxicology on organs that are outside of a body i don't know i don't know but my issue with this is also the fact that it's reported that they couldn't prove intent of murder but the fact is even if they didn't have the body, they had the skull, the one that was inside the Hello Kitty doll. Surely that skull would have shown fractures and injuries consistent with the beatings and torture that Man Yee had gone through. If you're beating somebody, you're not going to be, and you're fucking high off a face on meth, you're not going to be careful not to kick them in the head or something, are you?

How did that not show signs of injury? I don't know. And I couldn't find any information on that, so I guess that we just have to assume that without the body, the case just wasn't strong enough on how Man Yee had actually died. And it wasn't strong enough to meet the threshold to prove intent in order to get a murder conviction.

But still, I know people are losing their minds as you're listening to this, the fact that this was manslaughter and not murder. And it wasn't just the courts that believed all of the torture stuff and the testimony of Ling, because the case, of course, became a national obsession and was covered extensively by the media in Hong Kong. The story even inspired two horror films. And Asian horror films are something in themselves. But these two have got just fucking atrocious slash hilarious names. One was called There's a Secret in My Soup. And the other one was called Human Pork Chop. I love it. I love it. There's certainly a secret in my soup.

There you go. Anyone want some Halloween horror movie recommendations? I haven't watched either of these. But there you go. There you go. The involvement of Man Yee's ghost also meant that for several years after the case, there were constant paranormal investigators visiting the building where the notorious Hello Kitty flat was. But in 2012, the building was finally torn down.

Alongside the ghosty shit, this case also raised the same old questions that usually arise around such murders. We see this all the time, and they always ask the question, what was the impact of violent films on this gruesome murder? We saw it in the Suzanne Capper case, when the Chucky films had just come out. And in this case, the media pointed to Hong Kong cinema that glorified the triad gangs. And it's not incorrect.

The film industry in Hong Kong does seem to paint triads and gangsters as cool and sexy and glamorous and antiheroes. But we do the same thing with gangsters in Hollywood. We do the same thing with the K in Hollywood. We do the same thing with the Kray twins here, with like Snatch and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. Like it's all, everyone does it. Everyone does it. I don't think it's localized to Hong Kong. And we've talked about the fact that we don't put much stock in this argument before that if somehow our films and TV and video games were scrubbed of violence, that our world would be less violent. Humans are violent things. We've been violent since the dawn of time.

And I just think this argument of, you know, well, there's just violence on TV or movies or whatever that's leading to the violence we see in the world. The world is a much less violent place than it's ever been in history. So like that argument firstly doesn't make any sense. But it's also an incredibly complicated issue with many, many layers. And I just think simplifying it to find like a convenient scapegoat is not only pointless, but it's potentially dangerous as it distracts from the real issues and has us focusing on the wrong points, ultimately, in our opinion, missing the bigger picture. In an interview with the South China Morning Post, Professor Karen Jo Laidler, Laidler? Yeah, that the bigger picture. In an interview with the South China

Morning Post, Professor Karen Jo Laidler, Laidler? Yeah, that's her name. Good name. I don't know why I tripped over that. It's like I can see the list of Patreons underneath and I'm starting to get anxious. But anyway, Professor Karen, we'll call her that. She is a sociology professor at the University of Hong Kong and director of its Centre of Criminology. And the woman has spent her entire career extensively researching youth gangs and drugs, so it's safe to say she knows what she's talking about. And she said that she agreed that the murder did fit into the framework of the period, talking about the 90s in Hong Kong. But she also said that she believed that the crime was an anomaly. In this article

that we read, she said, quote, I get that it's connected to this era of violent events in Hong Kong, but I see it as an isolated event that was in the context of heavy methamphetamine use and all the consequences that come with the chronic use of meth. And I think she's probably right. I also think that she is correct too. So yeah. I think having a lot of organised crime, or violent organised crime in a city is one thing, but something like this is completely outlying, I think.

So yeah, that is the rather grisly case of the murder of Fan Man Yee, or as it's called, the Hello Kitty murder. So yeah, thanks for listening, guys. Don't forget to go head over to the Red Handed shop. The link is in the episode description. Go get your spooky bitch merch. It's all very exciting and once you get it take a picture send it to us. We are super excited whenever you guys do that. Apart from that you can also follow us on all the social medias at Red Handed the pod and you can also come on over to patreon and we've also just now that hannah and i are both full time we've started to do loads more content on there

we're now doing a whole extra bonus episode on the first monday of every month for ten dollar up patrons last month we did it on the cult incest clan which is even more horrifying than you think that it sounds from that title. So go have a listen. We've also got episodes on the persecution of people with albinism in Tanzania, the history of the Ouija board, how the warrior gene works, all sorts of stuff. So get on over to Patreon for that extra delicious content. So yeah, stay tuned for that.

And you can start us off this time, I reckon, Hannah. Go on. Oh, can I? You're so kind. Skye Robertson, Linsen Smith, Stephanie, Momo, Just Veronica to make it easy for you. Hi, Veronica. Nigel de Mac, Jennifer Irwin, Julie Goodwin, double O Julie, Elizabeth, Hannah McMillan, Robert Stone, Lucy, Doc Jaybird,

Margaret Nichols, Alana Belstein, Braden and Alexis, sorry, Braden and Alexis Paulson, Christine Longchamp, Thank you. phyllis attabong rebecca hoff lucy craddock my my uh conant red wolf alison thompson melanie hodge alexandra david walker sarah bannum sarah bannum sorry leah slater lauren richards sam brooks lucy leslie selene shannon salmon katie tracy wallace deirdre mcleod de ariel banks william jenkins heather phoenix and you can go amanda lionsons, Alison Coghlan, ALS801. Okay, thank you. Very personal. Thank you for your robot money.

Masha Novak, Taylor Rennick, Hannah Smith, Erica, Karen Cahir, Mildy, Emma Batt, Michael Webb, Jess Kennedy, Sarah Walker, Sarah M., Kimmy Mass, Janet Scroggie, I think so, Kim Petherick, Noelle Plourd, Plourd, Plourd, yeah, I think so, good, Tina Danielle, Lauren Lahua, Amy May, Kenny, Leva, Romani, Maya Holcomb and Kate Nicholas. Thank you guys so much. Also, we should say some people have been whinging about ads on the

normal show. If you pay $2 a month, just $2 a month, you can get the episodes a day early and totally ad-free. We're just trying to keep the lights on over here. The ads are a necessary evil, I'm afraid. If you don't like them, $2 a month is all you need to pay to get it all ad-free. There you go. Well done. Thank you, guys. So with that, we'll be back next week, earlier than usual. For Halloween parts one and two, double whammy bonus content for you next week. So we'll see you on Tuesday, not Thursday.

We will see you on Tuesday for the Halloween goodness. Also, quick note to patrons. Because of what we're doing with the one that's coming out on Halloween, we're not going to be able to release it on Wednesday. It will be coming out on Thursday morning with everyone else. However, you are getting one on Tuesday as well. So I hope it balances out for you. Absolutely. And it'll be worth it. You're getting four episodes, well, four episodes, four stories next week. So it's gonna be very exciting. That's true. Cool. Right. We'll see

you then. Bye. See you then. Bye. So get this, the Ontario Liberals elected Bonnie Crombie as their new leader. Bonnie who? I just sent you her profile. Check out her place in the Hamptons. Huh, fancy. She's a big carbon tax supporter, yeah? Oh yeah. Check out her record as mayor. Oh, get out of here. She even increased taxes in this economy. Yeah, higher taxes, carbon taxes. She sounds expensive. Bonnie Crombie and the Ontario Liberals.

They just don't get it. That'll cost you. A message from the Ontario PC Party. You don't believe in ghosts? I get it. Lots of people don't. I didn't either, until I came face to face with them. Ever since that moment, hauntings, spirits, and the unexplained have consumed my entire life. I'm Nadine Bailey. I've been a ghost tour guide for the past 20 years. I've taken people along with me into the shadows, uncovering the macabre tales that linger in the darkness.

And inside some of the most haunted houses, hospitals, prisons, and more. Join me every week on my podcast, Haunted Canada, as we journey through terrifying and bone-chilling stories of the unexplained. Search for Haunted Canada on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you find your favorite podcasts.