RedHanded - The Vietnamese Gore Butcher | #471

Episode Date: October 8, 2026

When videos of a gruesome beheading and dismemberment surfaced on gore-fetish websites across Vietnam in 2025, the internet was shaken to its core. Not because it was the first time anyone had seen disturbing videos online. But because this time, the victim seemed to have been actively involved in planning his own murder.But is it less of a crime if you have the victim’s consent? And could this be the world’s first ever real snuff film?Enter one of the most insane open-source murder investigations in history, as a community of crime-addicted cybersleuths tried to crack this grisly case themselves…--Patreon - Ad-free & Bonus EpisodesYouTube - Full-length Video EpisodesTikTok / Instagram

We have all seen something on the internet that has scarred us for life. We've all stumbled down some creepy digital alley where your innocent eyes fell upon a clip so violent and gory, it seared itself into your brain for all time, even to this very day. We're willing to bet whatever your particular personal hell may have been, whatever you're picturing right now that marred your innocence, isn't nearly as graphic or as disturbing as the Vietnamese gore butcher. Because in 2025 a series of videos showing the brutal execution and dismemberment

of a young man mysteriously surfaced in group chats and forums across Vietnam. Leaving all those who saw them with blood-spattered nightmares. At first, it seemed too sinister to be real. Some skeptics dismissed it as. is the latest creepypasta-style hoax, while others declared it to be a legitimate snuff film. But to a group of dedicated cyber sleuths, it was a horrific murder that only an open-source investigation could solve.

Their hunt for the culprit would take them on a journey from body horror fetish forums to recipes for human organ stew to ads for hacked-off penises. Only for them to realise that the killer had been right under the, their noses the whole time. Just how far down the dark web rabbit hole would you be willing to go in the name of justice?

I'm Hannah. I'm Saruti. This is red-handed. This is such a disgusting case. I'm so glad I just scoffed down some food. Maybe it will make a reappearance. Yeah, I have

got off-camera a little salmon Begall that I picked up on the way in. It's really not looking very appealing, given the fact that I know what is about to come. So prepare yourselves, don't eat anything. Or if you do, then don't tell us about it. I don't, you're not impressing anybody.

In the early hours of the 26th of July 2025, a 24 second clip started circulating around the darker corners of the internet. Filmed from above, it showed a young Asian man, naked and masturbating on a tarpauling sheet, in what looked like a small bathroom. His head was resting on a wooden block. He scarcely uttered the words, I'm about to ejaculate,

before another man, naked, save for a guy forks mask, stepped into the frame with a meat cleaver. He decapitated the naked man in a few expert strokes. Blood spattered across the room with each metallic swish of the axe. separating the victim's head from his body. A few hours later, another clip emerged.

This one was 73 seconds long, and it showed the same scene from a different angle, as well as its gory aftermath. The executioner immediately got to work, pulling the victim's head off his body, and slicing him to pieces with extreme, incredible precision. He can be seen severing the cartilage from the victim's rib cage

and cutting it straight down to the pubic bone, cleanly removing the man's penis and testicles. Several phone cameras can be seen mounted on tripods around the room, capturing the brutal scene from every possible angle. Then another clip emerged. This time showing the executioner in a blue and white tiled kitchen with the dissected parts of the victim's body. The camera pans over the limbs arranged in a pot,

internal organs soaking in a sink, and the head, penis and testicles, arranged neatly on dishes. The killer even films himself, perversely stuffing the victim's penis into the mouth of his own decapitated head. Photos accompanying the video showed the victim's heart, kidneys, penis and other organs cooked up in a stew, seasoned with traditional Vietnamese herbs like goji berries and red dates. One of the photos in the bunch was a selfie of the killer himself,

standing shirtless in front of a bathroom mirror wearing just a blue surgical mask over his face and holding the victim's freshly decapitated head against his chest with blood dripping down his arms and stomach but the horrific gore wasn't the only noticeable thing in that photo the killer had some distinctive features that weren't visible in the execution video he had a stocky muscular build a balding head and a scar above his left eyebrow and a purplish birthmark power

pattern on his armpit area. And most distinctive of all, a tattoo on his bicep that read, Nye I-39. That means that day, 139. Which won't make sense now, but be patient. Put it in your brain. A little while later,

an even longer version of the original video began circulating online. And this time, it had a sneak peek of what came before the brutal execution. in what looked like a bizarre rehearsal for the beheading between the victim and the killer. And this seemed to have been filmed in a totally different location, with an office-like backdrop featuring filing cabinets, a plastic plant and a blue ceiling fan,

but it was unmistakably the same victim, kneeling over a wooden block as his masked killer caressed his neck with a knife, and then mined the act of chopping his head off. Afterwards, the killer bizarrely pulled his victim in for a hug, as if to comfort him. So what in the fuck is going on here? More than anything, this dry run video, seemed to indicate that the victim had somehow been

a willing participant in the whole brutal saga. And with all the cameras set up around him in the final execution video, the victim would also have been well aware that what was about to happen to him was also going to be filmed. In other words, it looked like a well- orchestrated homicide of a victim who'd voluntarily placed his head on the trial. The execution, the butchering and the dry run videos were initially sold on the dark web and in Chinese telegram groups as a part of a pack of 11 recordings and 98 photographs.

But it didn't take long for the so-called Vietnamese butcher content to find its way to international gore websites, like watch people die. Not to mention illicit group chats and forums across Southeast Asia in particular. And that's how it became the talk of every true crime obsessive. pocket of the Vietnamese internet. These people knew that this wasn't just any brutal killing. This was a murder that had been very clearly and intentionally filmed, and at least initially, distributed for profit.

It seemed like the world finally had its very first bona fide snuff film. And if you are shocked by that comment and you're saying, Hannah, you're a liar. Sometimes I am, not today. Actually, I very, very, very rarely lie. I can't remember the last time I lied. For the uninitiated, snuff films are something of a myth that sits in the middle of the Venn diagram between fictional horror and true crime.

For a murder video to be classed as a snuff film, it technically has to be recorded deliberately for commercial profit. Not for pleasure, not to inspire fear, but for straight up monetary gain. Those are the qualifiers. Yeah, because we've talked before on the show about like when there's been all this stuff like the FBI debunk snuff films like snuff films don't exist. I'm like, why? Why would we say that snuff films don't exist? Like what people don't

film themselves like killing other people and put it on the internet? Like that seems like that definitely happens. But yeah, this is I guess what they're saying is like it has to be specifically and intentionally for profit, like for commercial gain. I still don't believe that that hasn't happened. Like that feels like a bit of a stretch. But apparently, it's an urban legend. Apparently it's never been like fully proven that there's been a snuff film. I still find that hard to believe, but okay. According to criminologists, no film has ever actually fit that description. Gory videos have been swirling around online for years. Of course they have.

From ISIS beheadings to Luca Magnotter's 2012 murder video, one lunatic, one ice pick. That reminded all of us not to fuck with cats. But just because a murder is filmed, does not a snuff film make? neither ISIS nor Luca Magnotta filled their killings for purely commercial gain. And in fact, the concept of a blood-soaked snuff film industry only emerged thanks to a sneaky marketing campaign for a 1976 horror movie called Snuff. Execs employed a touch of false advertising by suggesting that the film featured an actual real-life murder, which thankfully it did not.

But obviously, and sadly, this little... Ruse, drew audiences to the cinema in droves, and simultaneously created the urban legend of the snuff film as we know it. So when the Vietnamese Gore Butcher videos emerged behind a paywall on Chinese telegram groups, internet sleuths snapped to attention. Could this be the world's first ever example of a genuine snuff film? But this wasn't the only element of the story that stood out as particularly unique. Up until this point, there had only been two known cases in true crime history.

where one person had allowed themselves to be killed and consumed by another. Both of those were in Germany. I'm not saying anything. The first one, of course, of body shock fame, Armin Mivas, who killed and ate a man called Burt Brandis in 2001 after placing adverts online for a willing cannibalism volunteer and long-time listeners. The hardcore will remember our coverage of Arm Mivis in episode 47. Fuck.

And while that incident was filmed, doesn't count as a snuff film because it wasn't distributed or sold for profit. The other instance was in 2015, when German policemen, Dev Guntzfeld, killed Polish businessman Vojek Stemnovic after the pair met on a cannibalism fetish website. This is an incredibly rare flavour of crime. And in both cases, the men found each other in the darkest corners of online fetish men. message boards. So when a number of Chinese true crime buffs decided to start unraveling the mystery of the Vietnamese butcher videos, they had a pretty good idea where to start. They bravely began sifting through social media and online forums devoted to cannibalism and torture for the identities of the victim and his killer. And their instincts were right on the snuff film money.

By early August, just a few short weeks after the video was uploaded, online sleuths had managed to identify the Vietnamese butcher's victim, and we're going to call him Dat. Since, under the usernames, Dat Behead and Dat Beheading, this man had been frequenting some of the most violent, hardcore fetish sites since 2019. It was on these forums, as well as his own personal Facebook page, that Dat had regularly posted about a very specific and very fatal fantasy, to be executed by decapitation at the moment of orgasm and then to be eaten by his killer.

The idea came from a Japanese horror manga called Applicant for Death, which Dat found on a adult content forum and had specifically translated into Vietnamese. In the story, a man is having sex with two women, when one of them lops off his head with a katana, and in the severed head's last few moments of consciousness, it describes a sensation of total ecstasy. This story clearly struck a chord with Dat, because he didn't just fantasize about his own beheading.

He was actively trying to make it happen. Cyber sleuths discovered that Dat had been trawling these forums and message boards for years in pursuit of the perfect executioner. He identified as straight, But when he couldn't find any willing lady assassins, he created profiles on gay fetish sites to expand his search to men. The official term for Dat's particular brand of fetish is auto-assassanophilia, which basically covers any sort of sexual arousal that comes from the risk of being killed.

But Dat stood very much alone in his commitment to the bit. Even in online spaces dedicated to violent fetishes and death kinks, nobody else was actually willing to carry out their fatal fantasies, IRL. The past has a way of talking, if you know what to listen for. On Buried Bones, the historical true crime podcast from Exactly Right, journalist and historian Kate Winkler-Dawson teams up with legendary cold case investigator Paul Holes to revisit fascinating crimes from history through a modern investigative lens. Each week, Kate brings Paul a case from the past,

and together they delve into the evidence, the investigation and what modern forensic techniques might reveal today. Together, they'll take you through cases like in 1843, when the richest man in Rhode Island was found dead in the woods. Or the time a laundromat owner was found murdered in his shop in 1886, Boston. They even do a deep dive on the Axeman of New Orleans. These cases may be old, but the mysteries and the questions they raise are still relevant and often chilling.

Listen to Buried Bones wherever you get your podcasts, or watch on Netflix, episodes every Wednesday. The digital armchair detectives found Dat on social media, where his profile picture was always a chopping block and an axe. Even LinkedIn? Especially. They started sharing their findings on a Facebook group dedicated to the investigation, which they called OSINT and Cyber Investigation Vietnam. Ossint stands for open source intelligence. Cross-referencing Dat's fetish forum posts with his social media profiles, they were able to be able to be. to confirm his real identity using public records.

Dat was 36-year-old Wen Zhuan Dat, who was born on the 10th of March, 1989. Dat was last listed as living with his mum in the rural Taibin province in northern Vietnam. Through talking to former neighbours, the Osint group learned that Dat had moved to the capital Hanoi in his 20s after his dad had died. Datt's only living relative was his mother, who's suffered from the severe mental illness, and she had lost all contact with her son pretty much the moment he left for Hanoi. This tragically explained why no family members had reported Dat missing, and it also seemed like a major factor in why the police hadn't seemed inclined

to investigate the group's tips about Dat. No missing persons report, no murder case nothing. But the Oscent members knew that Dat was indeed missing. Despite being a typically frequent contributor to various forums, Datt hadn't been active on any of these forums since the 25th of January 2025. And when they scrolled through his Facebook page, they noticed a strange status update posted on that very same day. It read, it's about to go down, three hours left.

Was this the day that Datt was executed? And if that was true, then why had one more post appeared on Datt's Facebook on the 10th of June 2025 that said, from today, I'm logging off this account for good. Could Dat's killer have been the one to share that final post from his victim's account? When Osint members began messaging Dat's few Facebook friends for answers, one fellow beheading enthusiast offered a crucial piece of the puzzle. This contact, who went by the alias Pai Lee,

claimed to have met Dat in person just once, and said he worked as a fishmonger at a local market. He then shared a screenshot of a Facebook message exchange with Dat himself. This message from Dat was dated the 25th of February 2025, and it was chillingly simple. Dat has been beheaded. When Piley asked by who, the only response he got was a single thumbs up emoji. The timing of these messages seemed to indicate that Dat had died in the winter,

at least five months before the videos of his murder, were shared in July. It also suggested that the killer must have had access to Dats' phone and social media accounts the entire time, and that he and Datt, therefore, most likely would have had some contacts in common. The Ossent members theorised that Dats' killer may have been fishing for future victims by reaching out to other beheading enthusiasts through Dats' account, and those potential victims might just lead them straight to the killer. Pirely reckoned both he and Datt had both interacted with a user on their phone, fetish forums, who went by the moniker Chung.

It was a huge lead for the Ossent investigators who immediately started scouring Dat's socials for any connection to a person with that, admittedly common, name Chung. But just a few days later, Dat's Facebook page was suddenly shut down. The Oscent members had only been investigating the case for less than a month, and now their primary source of information had vanished. Aside from Datt's real name, Anna saw suggesting that he had died of. on the 25th of January, they didn't really have much else. So, just like that, Ossin's investigation into the Vietnamese butcher, ground to a halt.

But just when it seemed like the case had gone truly cold, in November 2025, a fresh post pinged in the Ossent Facebook group. And it would jumpstart the investigation into a whole new gear. The post came from an anonymous whistleblower from the beheading fetish community, who had been considering a similar fate to DAT. He shared screenshots of an exchange he had had with Dat at 2.40pm on his suspected death day, and Dat had said, Hi, it's three hours left. Would you like to video call?

As well as seemingly confirming the date of Dat's death, this grim invitation offered the exact window of time the execution might have taken place between 5.30 and 6pm. But even more explosive than that, the whistleblower also had screenshots of his own text conversations with Dat's supposed, killer, who was evidently keen to take on more clients. Because after the whistleblower had confessed his own fantasy of being beheaded, Dat had gone ahead and shared his details with the man he had contracted to kill him.

Since February 2025, the whistleblower had been exchanging messages with the assassin, planning to meet up in person to firm up the details of his own demise. This meeting was planned for just two weeks after Dat was killed. But at some point, the whistleblower had changed his mind and eventually decided to leak the information that he'd gathered to help Ossent investigators uncover the man behind the mask. This would prove pivotal in the hunt for Dats' executioner, because not only did these screenshots reveal the killer was operating under the Facebook name

Cam Thang Chung, but in his messages, Chung had invited the whistleblower to discuss his upcoming beheading at a specific address. 81 Chi Lang Hu Lang Town, Langson Province. This was right outside a government tax department building in northern Vietnam, close to the Chinese border. Now, the sleuths had a name and a location chosen by the killer. Could this have been the same place where Dat was killed? At the very least, they hoped it might offer some significant clues about his murder.

And soon enough, it did. The big break came from a YouTuber called K Tomo, who had been creating 3D reconstructions of the crime scene on their channel since investigations began. They cross-referenced the name Cam Tan Chung and the Hulang Town address with public social media profiles. And on the 20th of November 2025, they triumphantly shared a post announcing that they had identified

both the killer and the scene of the crime. But before they could show, share any real answers, Kato Mo posted again with an eerily cryptic message that seemed to imply they were being threatened. The forces behind this are too powerful, powerful enough to swallow our entire team, so the investigation will end here. Kato Mo added that if anything happened to them, all the information they had found would become public. Along with this unsettling announcement, they shared a screenshot of the alleged killer's face, partially obscured by a surgical mask. And a screenshot of a social media account with the username and photo blurred. Kato

Mo also shared that all of the executioner's anonymous social media accounts were under the name of his son, or some minor variation of it. And despite this incredibly vague and cryptic information, later that same day, the OScent members had done their thing, and they'd figured out that the blurred username read, Han H. Chung 1-1-1-1-1. That same social media handle appeared across multiple online platforms, anonymous forums, anonymous forums, Instagram, TikTok, and crucially, almost all of them shared a single connection to a person called Duan Wang Sang. And just like that, everything started to fall into place. I don't want to be rude, yeah.

It's not that difficult to put that together. You just cross-reference some stuff on social media. It's not Scotland Yard. I have to say the investigation is impressive how they've gotten this far, though. But that's all public record stuff. That's available to everyone. That's the point. Blow to the Ossent team.

No, love any work. Love and you work. Big fan. I'm just saying it's all out there already, you know. You just got to put it together, and they did. You just got to build the Lego house. And this is where it led them. on Facebook, 58-year-old Don Van Shang

seemed like a normal married father of two. This isn't how investigations go. It isn't this easy when it's real. I mean, I guess it's like how the people who found out Luca Magnotta, it's like they're doing all of the cyber sleuthing. And I guess if people think that no one's onto them, then they're not covering it as well as they maybe should be. Again, I don't want to seem like I'm slagging you off, Ossent.

But like what the Don't Fuck with Cats group were doing, was like analysing pictures of blankets. It wasn't just cross-referencing names. I mean, I also wonder like how much of real police work is just that, though. And it is just actually quite boring and like cross-referencing names and seeing what people are up to with more access than what they did. So they find this guy, Duan Van Seng, and he's on Facebook. And he's on Facebook because he's 58 years old.

And he looks like a normal, married father of two. He was university-educated and shared numerous posts documenting his career. as a government enforcement official in Langshan province, where he was responsible for intercepting counterfeit and smuggled goods. Sang was also the local head of the Duan Klang Association, a sort of networking organisation for people of the same ancestral lineage. Photos of Sang and his family showed all the hallmarks of a happy, normal life. But when Ossin investigators looked more closely,

they also saw the unmistakable physical attributes of the executioner, in the Vietnamese butcher videos. There was the same distinctive purple birthmark on his armpit area, the same scars, the same marks on his forehead, the same hairline, and the same facial structure,

and the same tattoo that read Naii 13-9. Which, as it turned out, was the birthday of his eldest son, who was named Than Chung. From there, OScent members went down the rabbit hole of Sang's secret life online,

because Facebook only showed the professional sang and the family man sang, but the fetish forums revealed the sang who was capable of brutally beheading, butchering and cannibalizing another person. Like most killers with perverse appetites, Sang didn't start out like that. At the beginning, he only seemed to use social media to flirt with guys on gay forums. But over the course of two decades, Sang's sexual preference grew more extreme.

He adopted a master persona, introducing himself online as someone who was, wanted to dominate, humiliate and torture his partners. And eventually, he developed an obsession with cutting, killing and cannibalism. In 2022, Sange uploaded photos of a dismembered body to a kink forum saying that he wanted to toughen up the other members. Those images were later removed, and it's never been clarified where they actually came from.

Screenshots also revealed that Sang regularly tried to order sliced off penises from dark web suppliers in southern Vietnam. These were believed to have come from sex reassignment surgeries. I don't think that's how sex reassignment works. I think they turn it inside out. I don't think they chop it off. Some reason they got a load of penises hanging around. There were pages of correspondence between Sang and other users in which he volunteered to buy their cock and balls and explained how he would prepare that person's meat.

All this to say, that Dan evidently had as much of a sexual desire to kill and eat people as Datt had a desire to be killed and eaten. The Orsaint honed in on specific details from Sang's online presence that provided clues as to where Datt's gruesome murder might have taken place. In a TikTok video from 2022, Sang filmed himself at one of the several market management department buildings, where he worked as a government official. And behind his head, you could see slightly misaligned filing cabinets,

a green plastic plant and a blue ceiling fan, an identical match to the Vietnamese butcher's rehearsal video, where Dat and his killer did a dry run of his beheading. As for the location where the killer had cooked up the grisly human stew, the kitchen with blue and white tiles, a green wooden door, and red skirting boards, well, never doubt the Ossent sleuths, dear listeners. Because in no time at all they managed to dig up an article

that included a photo taken at the MMD building where Sang were second in command. And in this photo, Sang can be seen inspecting goods just outside a room that matched every single detail of the kitchen from the video. And the address of the building was remarkably close to the address where Chung had previously invited the whistleblower to meet him. But when it came to the location of Datspurheading, there was far less to go on. It just looked like your standard, depressing, grey-tiled bathroom, but the sleuths assumed it must have been close to where the later butchering took place.

Ossint members figured the likeliest answer was that SANG had killed Dat in the toilets of the MMD building, his very own place of work. It was an ideal one-stop shop for the beheading and the butchering, since not only was there a fully operational kitchen, but also an incinerator. for destroying confiscated goods and best of all, the 25th of January, the day that Datt died, the entire MMD building was closed

for the Vietnamese Lunar New Year holiday, so it would have been totally deserted. And just as all this emerged on the Ossin Facebook page, its members made yet another chilling discovery. For months, Sang himself had been following the numerous forums discussing the case and had infiltrated their very own group. Before the connection was made to Than Chung-111111,

Sang was still using that account to comment on posts about the Vietnamese butcher. And during the lull in the investigation, he once reacted with a laughing emoji to one user who lamented the lack of leads, to the killer. Even after being exposed, Sang boldly posted bizarre messages on the Ossin timeline. In one message, he wrote the fourth. following. I am the executioner. Who can catch me? Let me tell you straight. You are the real

executioners because you want people to die so that you can celebrate. Isn't that right? I've lived 60 years in this world. I'm no longer afraid of death. And in another, he chillingly commented, this. Anyone who wants to meet me is invited to my house. Was this the agitation of a person falsely being accused online? Or was it the real-time meltdown of a murderer? Realising that the walls were closing in. By now, the Oscent group had effectively put together all the pieces of the puzzle of the case. They just needed the actual authorities to get on board. Despite being aware of the Vietnamese butcher videos for months,

the police hadn't actually launched their own investigation. As to why, some people believe they wanted to protect the image of Vietnam as being a uniquely safe country in Southeast Asia. Even I'm getting bored of that one. I feel like that's always the one that's battered around, isn't it? Other people simply just labelled the police as corrupt. Given Sang's respected status and ties to local government, some feared he may have had enough influence to shut down any investigation

before it even got off the ground. But after four months of seriously impressive online sleuthing, the Ostent Group finally had indisputable evidence to push the case forward. The only thing left to do was show the world what they had found. In November 2025, a few diligent members of the 20,000 strong online community put together a 110-page document and they even translated it into English to maximise its reach. And once their

explosive findings went public on the 27th of November, the police finally snapped into action. There was no more ignoring the case of the Vietnamese Gore Butcher, and just a day later, authorities announced that Dong Van Seng had been arrested.

Sang immediately fessed up to being the butcher and proceeded to share his side of the story. In his confession, he said they'd met Dat. Around 2020 through social media, where they would discuss their deviant sexual fantasies. Sang said that Dat repeatedly invited him to join an extreme fetish forum called Motherless. Sang claimed that he'd initially thought the forum was barbaric and wasn't really interested. But after researching more violent sexual fantasies, he eventually was like, all right, yeah, cool, I'll join.

From the earliest days of their online relationship, Dat had openly shared his dream of being decapitated by Sang. At one point, Dat supposedly even offered to pay Sang over 10 million dong, around $380, to rent a location where he could carry out the gruesome deed. But it wasn't until July 24 that Sang actually agreed to go through with it. Even then, though, he got cold feet and postponed the execution several times. This was confirmed via screenshots of messages between Dat and some of his forum friends in the months leading up to the beheading, where Dat shared his frustration about Chung's hesitance to commit to a firm execution date.

But of course, the day did eventually come. Dat arrived at the MMD building on the 25th of January 2025 with two cleavers. There was a bring your own murder weapon situation. And when it came to the beheading itself, that was one part of the story Sang didn't need to explain in his confession. Because there were enough videos to do that for him. Sang did share that after killing Dat, he immediately set up. about boiling the various separated body parts to prevent decomposition and odour,

while the Vietnamese butcher videos included footage of the killer preparing a sort of stew out of Dats' remains. It's not clear whether Sang himself actually ate it. But according to Sang's confession, after boiling the flesh and bones, he smashed the bones into tiny pieces and chucks the whole mess into ten separate plastic bags. Small portion was fed to some local strayed dogs, and Sang disposed the rest in multiple public bins. but he wasn't quite as thorough as he thought he had been. Because residents living in the flats beside the MMD building actually reported smelling a foul odour in early 2025,

although its source was never investigated. The police report released after Sange's arrest noted that the authorities had found three human teeth under the sink at the suspected crime scene. As well as numerous bone fragments in the septic tank of the bathroom, the drainage cavity in the kitchen and in the water channel behind the kitchen itself. So much for Sang's half-hearted efforts to cover his tracks.

But what happened to the two cleavers that Dat had brought along to his own decapitation? Well, on the 27th of January, Sang casually dumped them into a container off a street vendor's handcart parked along the roadside near his work. So it's safe to say that by the time the Vietnamese butcher videos were released six months later,

those weapons and any forensic value that they carried were long gone. During their search of Sang's home, police found two jackets matching what the killer was seen wearing in the rehearsal video. They also seized the mobile phone believed to have belonged to Dat, which Sang had given to his sister. Sang had finally been captured, but for many of the digital sleuths who'd contributed to that effort, the moment wasn't 100% satisfying. His confessions painted Dat as a coercive figure, who'd drawn Sang into this barbaric underworld of sexually motivated violence, implying that he had been some kind of victim. But Osint members knew better than anyone that Sang had been just as engaged in those depraved online spaces as Dat had been, even for years before they met. And they had

it on good authority that Sang had been pretty keen to recreate the whole sick act all over again. Just two weeks after decapitating Dat, he was already trying to recruit the whistleblower into becoming his next willing victim. Still, it doesn't really matter whether Sange claims full responsibility for his actions or not. He's currently awaiting trial and if he's convicted, he'll face life imprisonment and maybe even the death penalty. But for those involved in catching him, he can't stand the idea of Sang trying to make himself seem less guilty of murder because his victim had apparently asked for it. Which brings us to a sticky moral issue is so-called Consensual homicide, less of a crime than cold-blooded murder.

Goody, I like this one. Yeah. Honestly, I mean, the concept of consensual homicide itself is a bit of an oxymoron. It's such a rare phenomenon, though, that there's actually very little information out there about the particular psychology of it and the people that want to go through it. But it feels safe to say that does anyone actually get to consent to their own murder? being suicidal in the first place is associated with mental illness. So a person who wants to die by such brutal means, whether for sexual gratification or not, it doesn't feel like it's just super deep into BDSM.

It feels like they're mentally ill. Like, that's the actual problem. And in that case, the whole pretense of consent loses all meaning. And obviously, people with an urge to kill shouldn't be excused from the charge of murder just because they found someone who was mentally disturbed enough to let them kill them. If Sang had been unable to scout a willing participant to act out his own sick fantasies, would he eventually have gone on to take on a less than eager victim?

In a nutshell, the act itself is the same. So in either situation, the person swinging the axe onto another human being's neck is a murderer. At least to me, that feels quite plain and simple. And thanks to online vigilante efforts, the person who brought the axe down on young, and that's neck is thankfully going to pay the price. Yeah, that's where I always land on it. Like, I think it's not an unfamiliar debate to me,

which says quite a lot about my life. But I just, no matter where you come at it, a person cannot consent to their own murder. And consent is continuous and can be withdrawn at any time. Like, you just, does it? You know, I think to give consent, we would say, I mean, it's in the definition that it's like full informed consent. like it's there and if you're not mentally well enough to make that decision to consent,

then it feels like, well, you're not really giving consent. And, you know, maybe some people will be upset with saying like if you're really mentally ill enough to want someone to chop your head off, then you're probably not well enough to give consent. I still remember when we did that weird Unic maker and people were angry at us because we were like, people shouldn't be allowed to get their fucking body bits chopped off by this madman in a basement. And people were like, they're consenting adults. They can do whatever they want. And I'm like, yeah, sure, but it's like, it's mentally ill to be doing that. Anyway, whatever. I'm not even going to say to each their own because no, that's mad. That's absolutely mad. And yeah, I think Sang, he's a murderer. However you cut it, he's a murderer. He knew what he was doing. And just because the other person is like, yeah, I want you to do this to me. You don't have to do that. You don't have to take part in that. How many different. Scenarios are there where killers seek out vulnerable people. It's exactly the same thing. Exactly.

It's also worth returning to the snuff of it all. Given both Dat and Sang's motives, it seems pretty clear that money wasn't truly the primary purpose behind the Vietnamese butcher video. Finance came secondary to the sexual gratification of those involved. So, the wait continues for the world's first ever authentic, certified, stamped snuff film. you know, we assume that Sang's the one who release the videos because that's dead and presumably nobody else knows about this. And if so, why did he release the video?

It's six months after the killing. If he was purely like, I only did it because he coerced me into this. He wanted me to do it and I was just playing along. Why did you release the video for financial gain? Like, what was the purpose of that? Is it to share in the revelry of other people looking at it and like the sexual gratification he would have got

from other people responding to it, the shock of it? Was it purely financial? That again then makes me feel like, not that I need convincing, that he isn't just this sort of like coerced victim who went along with a killing that he really didn't want to take part in. Why would you be publicising it afterwards?

And the fact that the clips were initially distributed through the encrypted Chinese telegram app has led to some more unsettling theories. Primarily that Sang wasn't working alone. Some have speculated that he was actually working with other dark web operatives in East Asia who trade real-life gore content. On the Chinese platform, Bido Tierba, several similar videos of dismembered Asian men have surfaced in niche illicit forums since the Vietnamese butcher was back at it in 2025.

Which does make us wonder, perhaps there are a few genuine snuff films being traded behind the closed doors of the internet's darkest corners, and that Dat and Sang were just pieces of a much larger puzzle that made it in front of the paywall. But if those films are out there, I don't need them. I choose to live in ignorance. Yeah, no thanks. This has all just been so horrible. It reminds me of like when we did a few Halloweens ago,

people sent in their most horrifying horror movie scenes and then we watched that compilation. Oh, that was disgusting. If you want to watch that, I think it's only on Patreon. So you have to sign up for it. I think it was like the Patreon bonus episode that. Like, even when I think about it, feel sick. Some of the Asian ones in there were so disgusting. So yeah. We're in Dublin, I think.

And you text me the next day being like, do you want to come down and have some breakfast? I was like, yeah, in a minute. I'm just watching Botech on my phone. Oh, so disgusting. So disgusting. Oh, I actually feel sick. I actually might be sick. Oh, this salmon bagel is also not looking particularly good anymore. Delicious. Oh, no, no, no, no. disgusting. Well, that's it, guys. That is the second episode of Halloween 2026 here at Red Handed. This was actually sent to us by a listener. If you sent it to us, then comment below and take the credit that you deserve. I'm so sorry we don't have your name here. But thank you for lending us to us. Very, very recent, very outside of the Western world, very interesting case. And good work,

Austin, for doing this and getting the police to actually take some notice of what was going on. And the man was actually arrested. And so, yeah, hopefully, sang goes to prison for the rest of his life because he definitely loved doing what he did. And 100% he would have gone after more victims. He had got a taste for it if he hadn't done it already. Yeah. I hope you will feel thoroughly sick and we will see you next week for something else. Halloween. Goodbye. Goodbye.