RedHanded - Episode 338 - Horror in Hong Kong: The Braemar Hill Murders

Episode Date: March 7, 2024

Found raped and brutalised in the hills, just a stone’s throw from one of Hong Kong’s richest neighbourhoods, teenagers Kenneth McBride and Nicola Myers became the subjects of a national outrage.At a point of deep uncertainty in Hong Kong, the tragic murder of the two white expat teenagers became a symbol of everything that was bubbling under the surface. From accusations of racism and classism in the police, to involvement from the local triads, this would quickly become the biggest murder investigation Hong Kong had ever seenExclusive bonus content:Wondery - Ad-free & ShortHandPatreon - Ad-free & Bonus ContentFollow us on social media:YouTubeTikTokInstagramXVisit our website:WebsiteSources available on redhandedpodcast.comYouTubeRedHandedSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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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. Willkommen, bienvenue. In can... Can... Cantonese? Mandarin? Ask your dad. How do you say hello in Cantonese?

Hello in Cantonese. Oh, ni hao. All right. Ni hao. It's the same in Mandarin. Oh, there you go. Ni hao. Welcome to Red Handed

Only took us ten minutes Only took us ten minutes of googling To remember that ni hao is how you say hello So, hello, hello, hello We've got a hell of a case for you today Because our story that we're going to tell you this week Is one involving the notorious criminal underworld Of the Triads

The brutal murders of two innocent teenagers and a psychic fruit seller, all unfolding in a place and time like no other, Hong Kong in 1985. At the time, Hong Kong was one of Britain's last and largest metropolitan territories. It sat alone, surrounded on three sides by mainland China, and on the fourth was the Pacific. You know, apparently, so a lot of streets in Hong Kong used to have English names because we ruin everything. And when they renamed them in Cantonese, they changed them to be like, fuck you. So there's like a bunch of, but like a bit more like sophisticated, but there are a few street names in Hong Kong that are like,

we hate the British. I know. Well, so there you go. And just a year before, 1984, China and Great Britain had signed the Sino-British Joint Declaration. The 99-year lease under which China had given Hong Kong to the UK was up, and this treaty set out the plan for China to take back control of the city-state in 1997.

As a result, Hong Kong was in a major state of flux, and tensions were on the rise. There had been years of tumultuousness leading up to the treaty being signed. Hong Kong was prosperous, and many there feared that socially and politically, China would strangle Hong Kong. Just to compare, in 1985, the GDP per capita of Hong Kong was over $6,500, and the GDP per capita of China was just $295. People in Hong Kong wanted their autonomy and they wanted to remain having close ties to the West. But the uncertainty of how China would allow this when

they were back in charge was leading to a lot of instability on the island. So yeah, obviously, a lot of tension there about like, people not necessarily wanting to stay ruled by the British, though there were people that wanted to remain under British control to avoid having to go under Chinese control but they wanted that autonomy and that's what they were scared they were going to lose and what did we see a couple of years ago just that and sensing the transition as an opportunity to get a foothold organized crime was also on the rise the, which had a reputation as being incredibly safe, had seen a sharp rise in gang violence, robberies and even murder. And for some, who had not benefited from the prosperity

Hong Kong had enjoyed over the decades, there was a bubbling resentment towards the upper classes, in particular towards the large expat community that had made Hong Kong their home over the years. I feel like everyone has gone to school with someone whose dad lives in Hong Kong. Oh yeah. And one of these disgruntled people was 24-year-old Pang Shunyi. Pang was a low-level member of the Fukihing Triad, a foot soldier and wannabe gangster. He was the leader of his gang of five, who spent their days begging, stealing and committing petty crime on the streets of Hong Kong.

And you might be thinking that that isn't a very glamorous life for a member of the infamous Triads. But you're probably imagining the underworld Chinese gangsters with slick suits, cool tattoos, and a code of honour, the ones that run Soho if you see a red door triad. But what we're dealing with is a borderline homeless thief. And now seems like as good a time as any for a red-handed rundown on the Chinese triads, which I've been waiting to do for years. I don't know why it's taken this long.

It's time. So to understand the formation of the triads, we must start with the Qing Dynasty, which was an ethnically Manchu ruling class that reigned in China for around 300 years, from 1636 until 1912. There was a secret society called the Hang Society, which had been formed to overthrow the Qing Dynasty

and restore the previous ethnically Han Ming Dynasty. And the original triad was born in the late 1700s as the criminal arm of this Heng Society. Over time, this original triad splintered into several hundred smaller groups, known as the triads, many of which use a triangle as their symbol of choice, hence the name. These triads controlled China's export of opium, as well as various other criminal activities in the country. Then, in 1949, when the People's Republic of China was founded under Chairman Mao Zedong,

the triads, along with any other secret society, were seen as a major threat. Would you still be my friend if I wore a Chairman Mao t-shirt? Um, I would feel conflicted. As a result of this viewing of secret societies as threats, the triads were slowly forced out of China and into British-ruled Hong Kong. And W1. Yes, yes. Absolutely, because many of these triads actually did flee overseas and set themselves up across Southeast Asia, the United States and W1, here in jolly old England.

Actually, there is opposite Soho Theatre, there is a newsagent that only sells Chinese newspapers. No. On Dean Street. That's a fucking front. Of course it is! Did you see how they were, like, shutting down all the sweet shops in, like, Soho around Chinatown? It's like, that's just organised crime.

Absolutely. Because I always used to walk past them for years and be like, how is this sweet shop open? Who is buying sweets here? Turns out, nobody. When I worked at Soho Theatre, there's, so Soho Theatre on the one side and the opposite side is the Soho Hotel. And there is a red door, which is a brothel.

And when I worked at Soho Theatre, you see, maybe, I'm pretty sure it's still there, but I'm old now, so who knows? Anyway, you would see all sorts of characters coming and going through that red door. And one day there was a couple who got married at the Soho Hotel and they were having their wedding photo shoot in front of the red door. And we were all just watching. Were they Chinese? No. White.

Yeah, yeah. They just didn't know. Oh, sure, sure. And it's a very famous door. Like, everyone knows. So we're all sat behind the bar being like, shall we go and tell them? So in the end, I went up to them and I was like, I'm so sorry to interrupt,

but you might want to move. Oh my God. And they were like, oh my God, we had no idea. And I was like, yeah. That's hilarious. Anyway, back to the story. So after the splintering and suppression with the dynasties of the past now gone, in the 1950s, the triads saw a re-emergence. They saw the post-World War II era and the uncertainty that came with it because all of the men were dead.

But they saw it as the perfect opportunity to re-establish themselves. Apparently, that's why my cousin works in, I always say works in human trafficking. She doesn't traffic humans, she's anti-human trafficking. So she deals with a lot of like organized crime theory and blah, blah, blah. And she was like, the reason the Albanians have completely taken over London is because they took the New York Italian mafia model and took it to London because it didn't exist before because it was all triads. And that's why the Albanians have completely enveloped London

because they're using the same model that's used in America because no one had thought about it before. There you go. Anyway. That's miserable. By this point, the triads were effectively just organised criminal gangs.

Some were even specialising in white-collar crime rather than the usual pursuits we might think of like extortion, brothel operating, red doors and drugs. But particularly in China and Hong Kong, the triads did manage to maintain their connection to politics. I think that's the key difference, is that when the original triads set up and then the original splintering,

and the reason the CCP stamped down on them is because they were a political organization. They were there as the criminal arm of a political group, whereas that's kind of changed and shifted now, apart from in China and Hong Kong, allegedly. So the relationship between Saruti's best friends, the CCP, and the triads is quite complex and it has evolved continuously over time. There have been absolutely times of cooperation between certain elements within the CCP and the triads. Allegations of corruption and collusion abound. But, of course, the Chinese Communist Party officially condemns criminal activities

and has publicly taken measures to combat organised crime, including the triads and Shen Yun. Let's go watch it. OK. Great. Let's go watch Shen Yun and then go eat in Chinatown and go take a picture in front of that red door. 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. Claudian 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. 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+. Join Wondery in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Before we do that, though, we're going to talk to you now about the rank structure within hong kong triads now this is all very important i know this this red-handed rundown has been going on for a while but this is really really important so follow along because it's important to state

that triad groups now are geographically ethnically culturally and structurally unique when you're talking about like a triad gang that is operating out of like San Francisco, it's completely different to one that's operating out of Hong Kong. So what we're going to be discussing for the rest of this episode refers specifically to Hong Kong's triads. Triads use numerical codes to distinguish ranks and positions within the gang. The numbers are of course inspired by Chinese numerology and are based on the I Ching, or Book of Changes, which is an ancient Chinese divination text.

Features very heavily in The Man in the High Castle. No, I haven't seen that still. Yeah. It's the reason I got Amazon Prime. Because it had a really heavy, this must have been in 2014 15 had a really heavy advertising campaign it was like on all of the billboards and i was like i've got to watch that and it looks very dramatic it is very dramatic and essentially what it is is if we'd lost world war ii if we had lost world war ii what would have happened yeah and it's the same guy who wrote

to android's dream of robotic sheep that Blade Runner is based on. Okay. I can't remember his name. Anyway, I would rewatch season one. I tried to get past season two, couldn't do it. Read the book. And once you've read the book, it kind of ruins the series. But like the series as a standalone is good.

The book is better? It's just very different. Okay. So yes, that is what it is based on, these ancient Chinese divination texts. And so top of the pile, based on this ancient Chinese numerology, is 489, or Mountain Master,

or Dragon Head, aka the leader of the triad. Under the leader come the 438s, split into the vanguard, which is the operations manager, the incense master, or ceremony manager, and the deputy mountain master. So that's the leader's deputy and second in command. Then, on the third rung below this, comes the 4-3-2, aka the straw sandal,

who acts as a liaison between units and sub-triads within the larger triad. Then comes the 426, a.k.a. the red pole. This person is the enforcer or military commander in charge of any offensive or defensive violence conducted by the triad. Then is the 415, a. 415, aka the white paper fan, who deals with admin, paperwork and finances. Then comes the infamous number 49, aka the 49ers. These are ordinary footmen soldiers and low-level criminals who have been initiated into the triad. The only people lower than the 49ers are the Blue Lanterns,

people who work for the triad but haven't been initiated. Pang Shun-Yi was a 49er, for the minor triad, Fook Yee-Hing. Fook Yee-Hing itself is part of the Chi Chow Group, one of the five major triads that rule Hong Kong. Their main sources of income are racketeering, counterfeiting, extortion, drug trafficking, money laundering, and illegal gambling. The Chiu Chau Group has criminal operations on every major continent, including right here in the UK, and they are believed to have around 25,000 active members. However,

we need to take things back a notch because while yes, this is all going on, the man we're talking about today, Pang Chun-Yi, the 49er, was not an international criminal mastermind. That is very important to state. I think, like you said, Hannah, earlier in the episode, when people hear triad, triad member, they're like, oh my god god he must be some sort of like you know alpha fucking criminal underworld gang leader no he's a 49er and it's like one level up from being the lowest of the low having said that though he was the only inducted member of his small group of friends and that made him the de facto leader of a very minor group of sub-level criminals. So basically, he was a low-level 49er in charge of a bunch of blue lanterns, affiliated with a minor triad,

who sat under a much larger and more important triad. So the best way to think about it is Pang Shunyi was a very little, small, little fry. So now with the context set, let's get on with our story. On the 20th of April 1985, Pan Xunyi was out with his gang. They were, as they called it, out to play, which in their very clockwork orange-esque lingo meant wandering the streets of Hong Kong looking for trouble. They'd spent the morning breaking into cars, stealing what they could, then selling it, and so on and so on. By that afternoon, the gang were wandering around looking for anything they could sell as scrap metal,

before Pang came up with the idea of breaking into the large radio masts that sat atop Braemer Hill. Pang knew the area well. He lived in a dilapidated hut in an abandoned quarry on that hill and he was sure that they would be able to find some copper or something up in those radio towers which they could definitely sell for a good price. So, the gang trekked past the Braemar Hill mansions and through the winding paths amongst the shrubbery

up to the top of Braemar Hill. However, when they got to the radio towers, it wasn't as easy as Pang Shunyi had originally thought it would be. The towers were guarded by high steel fences and the gates were all locked. There were a few exposed bits of wiring which the gang yanked on in the hope of releasing some copper, but no luck. After a few failed attempts to break through the secure gates, they gave up, and they decided to head back down the hill and find another way to make a bit of money. And it was at this point that Pang decided

that their best option was to mug someone instead. He knew the tracks up behind the Bramer Hill mansions well. Despite only being a few hundred metres from residential Hong Kong, they were surprisingly well covered. And although plenty of people walked through them every single day, it was easy enough to hide away from them without being spotted. Sir Pangshun Yee and his four followers began skulking through the undergrowth, looking for a hopefully wealthy passerby to mug.

It was there that they spotted a young couple sitting down in a clearing surrounded by books. It was 17-year-old Kenneth McBride and 18-year-old Nicola Mayers. Both Kenneth and Nicola were born in the UK, and while neither came from particularly rich families by Western standards, the teenagers lived with their families in a gated community of mansions on Braemar Hill, one of the wealthiest neighbourhoods in Hong Kong. And both attended the prestigious Island School. Scottish kid Kenneth was well known around campus.

He was president of the student union and part of the school's rowing team. He was outgoing, good-looking, athletic, and even a bit of a poet. Sign me up! Kennett loved surprising the teenage love of his life, Nicola, with sonnets about what a bloody cat she was. And it was true. Nicola was beautiful, smart, and ambitious. She had a passion for languages and was one of the few expats who was fluent in both Cantonese and Mandarin. Nicola wanted to become an interpreter when she grew up, but tragically that would never happen. That day the couple were studying hard for their upcoming A-levels. They often liked to

come out into the paths above their houses to study together in private. Yeah, right. The pair were deep in conversation when they were spotted by Pang and his gang. Hiding in the undergrowth, Pang told his gang that these were Westerners, so they must have money. And the guy's arm was in a sling. So that made the couple a very easy target. Pang instructed his followers to split into two groups.

They crept through the bushes. Pang picked up a sharp, broken stick from the ground. And then they burst out and rushed the pair. The shock couple sprung to their feet and Pang ordered them to give him whatever money they had. Unfortunately for Kenneth and Nicola, they only had one singular dollar on them. This wasn't good enough for Pang. And he quickly became agitated, screaming at them to hand over their money. Panicking, the pair emptied out their pockets

and threw everything they had on the floor, desperate to prove that they had nothing else to give. Sadly, this only escalated the situation. Now filled with rage, Pang began to advance on the couple, as Kenneth tried to put himself between Nicola and the danger. Pang shoved Kenneth, who with his arm in a sling, sensed that it was time for either fight or flight. And the couple chose fight. They threw themselves at Pang and tried their best to overpower the five men in front of them, but they were horribly outnumbered and Kenneth was already injured. There was no hope. Before we get on to what happened

next, we need to talk about Kenneth's arm and why it was in a sling in the first place. Because we've seen the injury reported as two different things, in some cases in the same article. So either his arm being in a sling was down to a torn tricep or a broken collarbone. In both cases, the injury was reported as being the result of a rowing accident. However, we have done a little bit more digging, and we think that we have worked out where things have got confused. In one of the documentaries that we've watched, we have seen it described that Kenneth fought valiantly despite having a broken collarbone.

And we think that's where the confusion has started. We think Kenneth originally had a torn tricep, a much more common rowing injury than a broken collarbone, but that his collarbone was broken in the fight with Pang and his gang. And so then it was mistranslated as if Kenneth was going into the fight with an already broken collarbone when actually it happened during the fight. Anyway, sounds complicated. Why does it matter? Because a broken collarbone is quite hard to do and it shows you just how violent this fight became. So once Kenneth and Nicola were overpowered, they were tied up and beaten mercilessly. Pang, who was very much leading the violence, ordered the rest of the group to keep kicking and hitting so that they would all be equally culpable.

It was then that Pang set his sights on Nicola. He ordered the rest of the gang to act as lookouts, before Pang Shunyi then spent the next two to three hours raping and beating 18-year-old Nicola Mayers. It's like a horror film. Truly. Once Pang had finished, he announced that the couple had seen too much and needed to die.

He then used that sharp stick, which he'd originally attacked the couple with, to suffocate both Kenneth and Nicola to death. One of the group stole Kenneth's Nike trainers, and then the five men began to make a fairly pitiful attempt at hiding the evidence. They tore up all of the couple's school books and tossed them into the undergrowth in a nearby stream, before leaving the teenagers' bodies in a secluded clearing. The gang then headed back down into the city, like nothing had happened.

That evening, Kenneth's parents began to worry when their son didn't come home in time for dinner. They suspected that he just got distracted hanging out with Nicola. But, as it got later and later, Kenneth's mum called Nicola's house to see if they had turned up there. And when they found out that Nicola's parents hadn't seen them either, Kenneth's dad, Hugh, went up to the hill to find them. He knew that they liked to study up there. But Hugh didn't find Kenneth and Nicola. He did, however, find one of his son's torn-up schoolbooks.

This was not a good sign. So as soon as he got back to the house, Hu filed a missing persons report with the Hong Kong police. Given the relatively low crime rate, it was very unusual for people in Hong Kong to go missing, and even more unusual for them not to turn up unharmed. Unfortunately, as we already know, this would not be the case for Kenneth and Nicola.

The next day, on Sunday 21st April 1985, a bank manager was taking an early morning jog up Raymer Hill, when by chance he noticed what looked like two people laying in a small clearing on the hillside. The dense brush and winding paths made it difficult to see them, and it was only by sheer luck that this jogger had noticed anything at all Confused as to why two people would be laying in the woods so early in the morning he went to take a look and it was then that he realised that they were not two people sleeping in the undergrowth

but the bodies of the two missing teenagers and they had been brutally murdered. The bank manager called the police and the victims were immediately identified as Kenneth McBride and Nicola Mayers. One of the first on the scene was Chief Inspector Trevor Collins, an expat working for the Hong Kong Police Force. In a 2004 documentary, Trevor described the sight that greeted him as the most brutal he had ever seen. Kenneth was bound at his feet and arms, missing his shoes, and had over a hundred injuries on his body, ranging from harsh bruises to stab wounds. But Nicola's death was even more disturbing. She had also been tied up and had over 500 different injuries. A post-mortem

held at a British military hospital showed that Nicola had been raped and vaginally penetrated by both a stick and a bottle. There was also traces of semen on her body. An enormous investigation started. Over 800 people were called in to work on the case, including hundreds of officers and even the British armed forces stationed in Hong Kong. That day, 400 officers and a police helicopter combed the hillside in a long line, looking for any evidence that pointed towards the killers. The search was far from easy. The area of the hill where the bodies had been found was steep, rough ground, and it was covered in litter. Quickly, the search party began to find bits of torn-up schoolbook belonging to the murdered couple, but trying to find each piece, or indeed anything else that may have been useful evidence amongst the rest of the debris, was a mammoth task. Eventually, they did manage to piece together the majority of the torn-up books,

and even found the stick that had been used to beat, penetrate and eventually kill the couple. Given the scale of the initial search effort, and the brutal nature of their murders, in a city with a notoriously low crime rate, especially among the expat population, the case became huge in the local press. However, almost immediately tensions began to rise. The British press reported the incident as an awful tragedy born out of senseless violence, which it was. The Chinese-speaking press focused on something else. Because while violent crime wasn't common in Hong Kong, it wasn't unheard of. And when violence did occur, it was usually amongst the local poor population.

And so the Chinese papers raged that this case had become the largest criminal investigation and manhunt in Hong Kong's history only because the victims were white expats. With the case quickly becoming international news, the pressure was on for Chief Inspector Trevor Collins and the rest of his team to come up with some answers. People wanted to know who had killed these two innocent teenagers and why. The press quickly focused on

some kind of involvement from the triads. It was suggested that either Kenneth and Nicola had got themselves involved in organised crime or that they had been killed as a part of a triad initiation, in which would-be 49ers kill someone to prove their mettle. But the police dismissed both of these theories. They suspected that it was, well it was, some kind of mugging gone wrong. However, theories were only theories. Police needed something more concrete. Frustratingly for Trevor Collins, despite what looked on the surface like a huge amount of potential evidence, the police were struggling to get anywhere. DNA testing was in its infancy at

the time, and the small amounts of blood and semen samples found at the scene couldn't be properly analysed, let alone checked against some kind of database. Remember, it's still only 1985. So in the end, the police resorted to interviewing every family, both locals and expats, to find a lead, any lead at all. But it wasn't going to be easy, because there were 18,000 people in and around Bramer Hill that day at the time of the murders 18 000 how big is hong kong the thing is i think hong kong because i watched a documentary

about it about the housing crisis in hong kong because it's true it's a really weird situation where hong kong landmass wise isn't actually that small the problem is for whatever reason they don't develop on a lot of it. They just develop in this small patch and build up and up and up. That's why everybody lives in tiny little houses and houses are such a premium. But there's loads of land.

It's just really poorly developed. I don't know why that is the case. I remember I read an article when I was at university about a society, and they called it rural Hong Kong, which seems like a misnomer where it's matrilineal and everyone when you get married you take the the woman's name blah blah it's like a very unique culture but I could not fit I was like that can't be real because Hong Kong is Hong Kong is Hong Kong there is no outside of the city but there is but yeah the point I'm trying

to make is the 18,000 people in and around smashed into one really small area kind of fits with the way in which unfortunately people in Hong Kong live. So of course this left the Hong Kong police with an almost insurmountable task. So British police actually sent over the computer system that they had developed here after the Yorkshire Ripper case in the 70s. This computer program was designed to help narrow down suspects and sift through large amounts of data. So this helped the Hong Kong police bring down that list substantially to roughly 180 suspects instead of 18,000. Still feeling the pressure though, Trevor Collins then flew to Britain,

personally escorting several pieces of key evidence for testing by the Home Office. The UK Home Office at the time was at the leading edge of DNA and fingerprint testing in the world and the hope was that they might be able to salvage some sort of partial fingerprints or something found on the torn books and bloodied stick. But sadly, no dice. Six months went by without a break in the case, until finally a potential lead came from an unlikely source. An unknown fruit seller arrived at Hong Kong police station saying that she was having psychic premonitions about the Bramer Hill murders. And according to this woman,

she had woken her husband up several times in the night, shouting in English, a language that this woman claimed not to be able to speak a word of, and she thought that this must have been connected in some way to the two British expats who were murdered months before. Incredibly, the woman was questioned and did seem to have some information that the police knew to be true, but that hadn't been made available to the public.

Allegedly, some of the things that this mystic fruit seller said even turned out to be true later in the investigation, although we have no written report of what these things actually were. The police were so taken aback by what this woman had to say that they brought in their own clinical hypnotist. Sure. Yeah, no, they can't do... They're not doing fingerprint testing, but they've got a clinical hypnotist.

Clinical hypnotist, Jesus Christ. You don't believe in ghosts? I get it. Lots of people don't. 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. Hi, I'm Lindsey Graham, the host of Wondery Show American Scandal.

We bring to light some of the biggest controversies in U.S. history. Presidential lies, environmental disasters, corporate fraud. In our latest series, NASA embarks on an ambitious program to reinvent space exploration with the launch of its first reusable vehicle, the Space Shuttle. And in 1985, they announced they're sending teacher Krista McAuliffe into space aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger, along with six other astronauts. But less than two minutes after liftoff, the Challenger explodes. And in the tragedy's aftermath, investigators uncover a series of preventable failures by NASA and its contractors

that led to the disaster. Follow American Scandal on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. Experience all episodes ad-free and be the first to binge the newest season only on Wondery+. You can join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Start your free trial today. Anyway, this clinical hypnotist

assessed the psychic fruit seller woman, and this is a direct quote, the clinical hypnotist assessed the psychic fruit seller woman. And this is a direct quote. The clinical hypnotist decided that this woman was, quote, more than a little weird. How medically professional of you. But the clinical hypnotist did lend some credence to this lady's statements. Despite this, it was decided that the psychic was best kept behind closed doors and any evidence she provided was never officially used in the investigation, which... Oh, good. Thank fuck for that.

Now, obviously, this wasn't quite the break in the case that Trevor Collins had been hoping for, though I also don't get the feeling from Trevor Collins that he is a man much for psychic fruit sellers. He is personally escorting pieces of evidence to and from the UK. I don't think he's here to fuck around. But thankfully, the break in the case did come, and it came from a much more traditional source. Since the start of the case, the police had been offering 50,000 Hong Kong dollars as a reward for any information leading to an arrest. That's around 5,000 US dollars at the time. This money hadn't been quite enough to stir up any interest. However, when an anonymous businessman upped the reward to $500,000 Hong Kong dollars,

tips started coming in thick and fast. And in November 1985, Trevor Collins received a call that would bust this case wide open. The caller was a lieutenant in the Fuk Yi Hing triad. And he told Collins about a strange interaction he had on the night that Kenneth and Nicola

had been murdered. Fucking snitches get stitches. Like, why are you talking to the police, sir? Anyway, this man had been playing mahjong with the Fooki Hing's dragon head when a low-level 49er walked in with a big grin on his face. The big grinner told his boss that he'd got himself in some trouble and that he might need some help, but he seemed far from embarrassed about what he had done.

According to the lieutenant, his boss stayed calm as the young man described how he and his friends had attacked some expats to take their money. He then went into detail about how he'd raped the girl and killed them both. Again, according to the lieutenant, the boss waited until the young man had told him everything before he exploded in rage. He hit the young man with a chair and then attacked him with a knife. Trevor Collins asked the caller what the young man's name was, and it was Pang Chun-Yi. Now look, it's still a bit of a mystery as to exactly why this lieutenant decided to break

several of the most sacred triad codes by informing on a member of his own gang to the police. Several of the sources we've seen has said that the move was simply money motivated and that the lieutenant was just hoping to get a payout and run because remember there's 500,000 Hong Kong dollars on the line. But some also claim that the dragon head himself, so the top dog, may have authorised throwing Pang Shunyi under the bus. Not out of some sort of thirst for justice, but because Pang was clearly a liability. And a liability that was almost certainly going to bring noise to their door. Though if that was the case, they could have done it much more easily and at much less risk to themselves. Like they could have just killed Pang.

Yeah, I really don't understand why he's still alive, to be honest. They don't need to, like, go to the police and hand him over. Regardless, it didn't take long for the authorities to locate Pang Shenyi. He was in custody by the 27th of November. And just a day later, on the 28th, after hours of intense interrogation, Pang had given the names and locations of the rest of his group. Their names were, pray for me, Tam Si-fun, Chui Wai-man, Chung Yao-hang and Won Sam-lung.

Sounds right to me, thank you. And it turned out that Tam Si-fun had actually been wearing Kenneth's Nike trainers when he was arrested. Given the nature of the crime that had taken place, the police were shocked to find that none of the men they picked up had any kind of criminal convictions, which is why they had not turned up on any kind of database. In fact, two of the group, Chung Yao-hang and Won Sam-lung, were just 17 and 15 years old. All of them were held in separate police stations and all confessed quickly. However, according to Trevor Collins, all wasn't sorted.

The confessions were a start, but he worried that without more evidence, they would struggle to get solid convictions for the gang. So the three men and the two boys were held in custody for almost six more months while the police tried to gather more evidence. They even asked the men to take part in a video reenactment of the event as part of their voluntary confessions.

Presumably, the gang hoped that this cooperation would help them in court, so they all agreed. Eventually, the case went to high court and the trial began in November 1986, a year and six months after Kenneth and Nicola had been murdered. In a last-minute plea bargain, now 16-year-old Wan Samlung agreed to plead guilty and turned witness against the other four. We're still not entirely sure what he got out of this plea deal because he was detained at Her Majesty's pleasure indefinitely. So that doesn't make a lot of sense. Yeah, they're just like, you turn on all of them, but you get nothing. Right. And he's like, sure, I'm 15.

Anyway, on the day, the other four all pleaded not guilty despite having already made full confessions and having taken part in reenactments. The trial lasted 56 days. But on January 20, 1987, almost two years after the murders, all four of them were found guilty. Pang Shunyi, Tam Sifun and Chu Wai Man were all sentenced to death. However, that was a bit more of a symbolic sentence. We've talked about this previously, actually. The UK abolished the death sentence. So, as a UK territory, Hong Kong has stopped enforcing the death sentence, and it had done several

years before this case happened. So in reality, all of the gang were actually given whole life sentences. However, eventually both of the younger men, Cheng Yao Hang and Wan Sam Leung, had their sentences reduced. And in what I can only describe as an incredible act of kindness and forgiveness, Kenneth's family wrote to the Hong Kong government asking for Wan Sam Leung to be forgiven.

They felt that he had pleaded guilty and provided evidence for the prosecution at just 15 years old, so they wanted him to have a second chance. That is incredibly noble. I don't think I would have. Honestly, I feel like I want to cry. Yeah. That is... That is unbelievable. They're giving him a better deal than the prosecution gave him. Mm. So, based on this letter, Won Sam-lung was actually released from jail on the 28th of September 2004, and he gave an emotional public apology,

vowing to make the most of his second chance at life and to be a better person. Chung Yao-hang, the one who had been 17 at the time of the murders was also eventually released and both men have since found work through the government and seem to have genuinely made new lives for themselves. As for Nicola and Kenneth's families they were of course shattered by their loss

but they channeled their grief into setting up a joint fund in their children's names with the aim of helping underprivileged children in Hong Kong access education. The foundation was still in place at Ireland School as of November 2019, which is the last record we could find. But that's nearly 40 years after their murders. Then, in 1993, came the controversy of the Bramer Hills murder film. It says movie, I can't say it. The trailer itself was grim. There's a raspy voiceover claiming, finally, the truth, while clips play of a white woman being raped and beaten,

and then images flash of the couple enduring a violent beating before the trailer ends, with shots of two naked, bloody bodies lying on a hillside. And as you can imagine, Kenneth and Nicola's parents were furious and they demand that the film be banned. The director claimed that he had no intention of the film being a quote-unquote sexploitation film,

which does feel hard to accept, given that he also stated that sex and violence do sell and we do have to consider the box office. He literally says that in an interview. He's like, I'm not trying to make a sexploitation film, I'm not trying to exploit this horrible tragedy that happened, but the box office, though. Yeah, and he really puts the final nail in his own coffin in this

because his not-sexploitation argument completely falls apart when you just do a quick Google and realise that he cast Playboy Bunnies. To play an 18-year-old girl that was raped and murdered. It's horrific. It's horrific. That is horrific. It's absolutely horrific. But there you go. That's the story. It's horrific. It's horrific. That is horrific. It's absolutely horrific. But there you go. That's the story. There you go. There it is. First time we've managed to squeeze in a red

handed rundown on the triads, which we were all very excited about here. But yeah, a truly, truly just like last house on the left fucking horrible horror movie of a case but there you go that is it hopefully you guys learned something today we'll be back next time with something else goodbye He was hip-hop's biggest mogul, the man who redefined fame, fortune, and the music industry. The first male rapper to be honored on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Sean Diddy Cone. Diddy built an empire and lived a life most people only dream about. Everybody know ain't no party like a Diddy party, so.

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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

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