The Misery Machine - The Eight Immortals Restaurant Murders | The Pork Bun Murders | The Untold Story

Episode Date: February 22, 2021

This week, Drewby and Yergy travel to Macau for a chilling series of murders tied to mahjong, gambling, and of all things... delicious pork buns? Tune in as we uncover an urban legend that rocked the dazzling casino hub of Macau in the mid-1980's  A very special thank you to Levi for supporting our show as our highest tier patron! Levi's Adoption Fundraising Page: https://gofund.me/d658a3a7 Support Our Patreon For More Unreleased Content: https://www.patreon.com/themiserymachine Join Our Facebook Group to Request a Topic: https://t.co/DeSZIIMgXs?amp=1 PayPal: https://www.paypal.me/themiserymachine Instagram: miserymachinepodcast Twitter: misery_podcast Discord: https://discord.gg/kCCzjZM #themiserymachine #podcast #truecrime Source Material: https://www.plataformamedia.com/en/2020/08/04/one-of-macaus-most-macabre-crimes-occurred-35-years-ago/?lang=en https://www.reddit.com/r/CreepyWikipedia/comments/b7c27u/eight_immortals_restaurant_murders_murders_over_a/ https://didyouknowfacts.com/serial-killer-sold-human-bbq-burgers/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight_Immortals_Restaurant_murders

Hi, we're the Misery Machine. I'm Yergy. And I'm Drewby. And this week we're doing a lesser-known case from Macau. It's called the Eight Immortals Restaurant Murder, known in urban legend as the Pork Bun Murders. This case was also depicted in a Chinese movie called The Untold Story. If you want to check it out, you definitely can,

although I definitely do not recommend that you do. No, no, it was pretty bad. And if you're listening to on YouTube, please like and subscribe. We're just about to hit 3,900 subscribers, so thank you everyone for the support. Thank you. Without further ado. The Pork Bun Murders. It is not surprising that cannibalism is generally one of the worst taboos imaginable.

The idea of eating another human being's flesh is utterly disgusting. And such acts can often only be found in horror stories meant to repulse the audience. However, one infamous urban legend in the Chinese community revolves around a murder where the victims' bodies were disposed of by being turned into char sous-bow, which you might know better as delicious steamed barbecue pork buns. And so, the story goes that these human pork buns were sold to the unsuspecting public by the murderer and were disturbingly delicious, harkening back to the Broadway production of Sweeney Todd, the demon barber who turned his victims into meat pies, or that of Joe Methany, the corpulent serial killer from Baltimore, who was rumored to serve.

of human flesh at his roadside barbecue stands. So he's kind of a gross serial killer. Do you know anything about him? I have not heard that name before now. He is a giant man and we'll have some pictures on YouTube, but he was a trucker and he also had this roadside barbecue stands. And he would pick up prostitutes and kill them and there was rumors that he was using some of the flesh to make barbecue hamburgers. Was it proven? I don't think it was proven, but That was the rumor. I think that's somebody we should cover. Should we cover him?

Let us know. Comment section or send us a message. However, the Chinese urban legend is actually based on a real gruesome murder case in Macau, which would later be depicted in the gory Hong Kong film The Untold Story, starring Anthony Wong and Danny Lee. The eight Immortals Restaurant Murders were a horrifying crime which captivated the imagination horror of the Chinese public of the time. So we watched this movie. movie or started to watch this movie? We got through about maybe 15 or 20 minutes of it and it was really bad.

I mean, if you really want to watch it, it's on YouTube. You can find it. I think we found another source that had subtitles, but it's sort of been made into a comedy. Yeah, it was strange. And it's not real. Like, what I've read is that most of what happens in that movie is fictionalized and is not really reflective of what happens. It more tried to represent the urban legend more than the actual case. So Huang Zhihang was born in mainland China before emigrating to Hong Kong in 1970.

Due to primarily living a life tied to some form of crime, Huang had several identities over the years. In 1973, he became involved in a dispute with a man who allegedly owed him money. The dispute resulted in Huang murdering the other man and fleeing Hong Kong for Guangzhou. Now this is depicted at the beginning of that movie, the untold story, and it shows them playing mahjong, I believe, and then fighting, and then the gentleman who's supposed to be Huang, lighting the gentleman on fire that owed him money. Yeah, but not before this is true. Not before he kills him by slamming his head repeatedly into a wall over and over again, which apparently kills people, I don't know. And then he killed somebody else before that. I can't

remember how. It was just very unrealistic and almost meant to be humorous. Between trying to read the subtitles and trying to figure out what was going on at the same time matching up with the actual story that I know, it was hard to follow. Yeah. So we don't really know how this man was murdered. I couldn't find any information. But if you do decide to watch the untold story, this is the gentleman that gets lit on fire. There is very little information on this case that's in English. We tried. We really tried. But it's really interesting too, so. And when this comes out, I think we're one of the only podcast episodes that has done a episode on this.

And we will be the second video on YouTube in English that covers this. So there wasn't a whole lot to work with. But if you like the urban legend, the movies for you, I guess. So after living in Guangzhou for several years, long married the daughter of his landlord. The woman's family disapproved of the marriage to the couple eloped, fleeing to Macau, which is the gambling capital of the world, apparently, not Las Vegas anymore, so I'm told. Before leaving China for the second time, Wong burned off his fingertips to avoid being connected to the murder he committed in Hong Kong.

In Macau, Wong became involved in the local gambling scene yet again, becoming acquainted with the Zhangs in the process. Wong was around 50 years old at the time. So, yeah, as Juryby stated, Macau is a very urban area. with a gambling industry seven times larger than that of Las Vegas. Yeah, and I got those figures, I think 2014, 2015. I was reading that reported. So I don't know what it is right now.

All I know is that as far as poker's concerned, some of the biggest highest stakes poker games don't take place in Las Vegas anymore. They actually take place in Macau. And why this is, I'm not sure. I'm told that it's much larger there. There is more services there. There's more things to game. gamble on there and it just seems to be more of a hot spot, basically what Las Vegas should have been or used to be.

Also, I believe gambling in Asian cultures is a lot more acceptable compared to here where it's looked at a bit more, you know, like people who do it are degenerates or addicts. And another thing I found interesting, when we did Junco Feruta, the end scene, I guess you can call it, right before she was killed, kind of. sparked off from a game of mahjong. I had no idea that people gamble playing mahjong until we started covering some of these cases. Yeah, I knew that they would place money on it. I mean, you can place money on just about anything. I mean, I've played rock paper scissors for money before. If there's something, you can find a way to bet on it if you want to so badly. But I don't understand mahjong as a game very well. And I guess it's really just my own ignorance. The only thing I knew about mahjong is you could play it on your computer. It was part of your free games that came on your computer.

Yeah. It seems difficult to play in person with all the setting up all the tiles. At least I think that's difficult, but I know almost nothing about it. I don't even think I've seen a Majong tile in real life. During a night of heavy drinking and gambling in 1984, Wong and Zhang became involved in a series of high stakes bets. Now, allegedly for Mahjong, it's depicted that way in the movie, but we had one source that said it was indeed Mahjong. In the end, Wong won 180,000 Chinese won from Zhang. The Zhang family was never able to repay the debt. So they both made a verbal agreement that Zhang would hand over his restaurant's mortgage to Wong

if the debt was not paid within a year. Wong agreed and went on with his life. However, after a year, the Zhang family stopped paying. Wong later told the authorities that due to the authorities that, due to the same, this default, the Zhang family owed him interest allegedly about 600,000 Chinese won. That's some serious interest. That's some, let's see. So if it was 180,000, I mean, I've seen some sources that over time they ended up owing more money than that.

But let's just say it's 180,000 won. You're looking at over 300% interest in a year? It's pretty crazy. So the eight immortals murders took place on the night of August 4th. 985. Nine members of the Zheng family were busy cleaning up the restaurant after closing the establishment after a long day of work. The Eight Immortals was the name of the restaurant.

Police records at the time revealed that the family was last seen alive by a delivery driver in the late afternoon. In the evening, Huang enraged at not receiving the money owed to him, entered the restaurant and demanded that Zhang pay him 30,000 Chinese Juan of the debt incurred. Wong became even more agitated when Zhang Lin refused to transfer ownership of the restaurant as agreed a year earlier. Eventually, Wong grew physically aggressive toward the Zhangs, breaking a beer bottle and using the jagged glass that remained as a makeshift weapon. He took Zhang Lin's son hostage and forced the other members of the family to bind and gag each other while holding his weapon to the son's neck. Wong later confessed that one family member broke free and started to scream,

causing Wang to stab her in the neck with his weapon. He then proceeded to kill nine members of the Zhang family, either by strangulation or with the broken bottle. He then briefly left the restaurant to lure one of Zhang's sisters to the restaurant, where he too then killed her. So he dismembered the bodies over the course of eight hours and wrapped them in black plastic trash bags, which he then dumped into the ocean or threw into dumpsters.

He recovered some money and a safe key from Zhang Lin's corpse, and then left the restaurant, choosing instead to stay the night in Zhang's nearby residence. So you see this in the movie in the beginning. People are walking along a beach and they see a box full of limbs wash up on the beach. Apparently that's accurate, I guess. That is accurate. The next morning, the driver of the delivery truck who normally delivered goods to the Zhang restaurant, found that there was a sign on the door stating that the restaurant was closed for three days.

Surprise, he went to the Zhang residence where Wong opened. the door. The killer informed the man that the Jenks had gone in an urgent trip to mainland China. Four days after the crimes on August 8, 1985, a swimmer found eight pieces of human limbs on a beach in Macau. At first, the police suspected they could be smugglers bitten by sharks, but a closer examination of the human body parts found revealed that precise cuts had been made, so this discovery led to a deeper police investigation in a search for possible missing persons. Yes, this is the part that Drewby was talking about that was at the beginning of the movie where swimmers on the beach found the box of body parts. And it was kind of exploitative.

Yeah, it was. They just went on and on and on about just how bad everything smelled. That was like the running thing. Yeah, it's like they didn't really care. They were just like, oh, this smells really bad. And then one character was making fun of another character's breasts. It was just very strange. It was the most ridiculous movie I think I've seen recently.

So in the following days, the forensic. investigation determined that the members found belonged to at least four different people. Another three human body parts hit the shores of Macau's beaches during the following week. These discoveries generated significant interest from the police and the press, and rumors began to circulate about what exactly has occurred. So meanwhile, as if nothing had happened, Huang reopened and continued to operate the Eight Immortals Restaurant. To generate more income, Huang began to rent out the Zhang home as if it some sort of Airbnb. This all started to seem like the most perfect crime until relatives of

the Zhangs reported their disappearance, and police started to suspect that something was a foul. When the police seized Wong's assets, they discovered documents belonging to Zhang Lin, as well as student cards for the family children. Wong tried to flee Macau but was arrested on September 28, 1986. He was charged with the murder of all 10 members of the Zhang family and convicted on October 2nd, 1986. That's very fast. Yeah. Like within three or four days, he's convicted. No mess around. That's pretty expedited, I must say. Wang's arrest and the revelation that he'd been operating a restaurant for months after dismembering the eatery's former owners resulted in the urban legend that he had baked his victims into pork buns, which didn't actually happen.

So while in prison, Huang was attacked by another prisoner the day after his conviction. He was taken to the hospital where he tried to escape without success. Finally, on October 6, he confessed the crimes in detailed to investigators how he killed the Zheng family. Huang attempted suicide twice, successfully achieving it on December 4, 1986 after cutting his wrists on a trash can lid. He left a suicide note in a letter to a local newspaper, explaining his actions and stating in the note that the suicide was not due to remission of his sins, but to get rid of the chronic asthma he had suffered for years. So again, really strange guy. The final remnants of the eight immortals victims were found in a garbage dump four years after the crime in 1989.

So that was it. I can understand how this turned into an urban legend. I mean, you think how this must have been portrayed when it hit the papers. We didn't have the internet then, really. So I can understand why people thought, especially when he was still operating the restaurant. I mean, think about how things get all blown out of proportion anytime something happens at a restaurant. Yeah. You know, there's the constant really not nice rumor that at Asian restaurants, they're cooking cats and dogs. Yeah.

I mean, that happened around here with pepper and spice. Yeah, pepper and spice, they said something. I don't know exactly. There were some sort of rumors that I don't know were true or not that they were just leaving raw chicken out. And I heard rumored they were just like partying and smoking inside. I mean, I found it probably some of the most delicious Thai food I've ever had. It was the most amazing Thai food restaurant.

miss that place so much. But they're all sorts of ridiculous rumors about the cleanliness of the establishment. I mean, even chain restaurants have their own type of situation too. So chain restaurants definitely do. So the KFC on Lisbon Street in Lewiston had what they thought was a human foot found outside. When was this? This would have been probably 25 years ago. Okay. It was a very long time ago. But what ended up happening, it was a bear's foot that had been skinned. and someone left it outside as some sort of prank. So you wouldn't even like imagine how crazy the rumors got. There was a rumor going around that a human foot had been found in the friulator at KFC.

I mean, I heard that there was some rumor that somebody was caught and fired for putting human feces into the meat tube there. And I know that actually did happen with a Taco Bell somewhere else in the country. But I don't think that actually happened here in Lewiston. I mean, kind of what I'm getting out without getting in too much of a tamper. tangent here is I can see in the pre-internet days where you have 10 people murdered and it's revolving around food how crazy stories could happen. Yeah, absolutely. And just in general, before the internet, rumors like this just happened all the time with everything. I think we've given plenty of examples of things like that, not just now, but in previous episodes on urban legends and

things like that. So happy lunar New Year. Yeah, happy Lunar New Year. It's Year of the Oaks. The Oaks, okay. So I was. I wasn't sure what year it was because I don't, I'm naughty and I don't really follow things. I'm a bore. So I only know when it's the year of the pig. I think I'm a rabbit. I think you are. Yeah, I think I'm a rabbit.

Because it goes by year. Yes, it goes by year. Not by like month, like the horoscope or anything like that. But I found out when Blizzard sent me a new ox mount in World of Warcraft for the Lunar New Year's Celebration. I'm like, how wonderful. What was the previous? Last year, I believe, was the year of the rat. That's what I thought.

And I only remember that because I had some year of the rat stamps. Okay. Yeah, that makes sense then. So if you like the episode and you're listening on YouTube, please hit like and subscribe so that way we can keep bringing you content like this. It is probably the best way to support us is to hit like and to subscribe. And if you're not listening to YouTube, subscribing to us on your preferred platform goes a long way to help us grow this channel.

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