A 13-year-old girl came to the police, claiming she was plagued by terrifying nightmares and haunted nightly by the ghost of a headless woman. What officers initially thought might be a case of attention-seeking quickly turned into one of the most shocking investigations in Hong Kong’s criminal history.
The teenage runaway, later identified in court as Ah Fong, revealed that she had been groomed and drawn into a dangerous gang. She testified that she had witnessed—and at times participated in—the brutal torture of a young woman. When police were led to the apartment where the abuse occurred, the stench of rotting flesh immediately confirmed their worst fears.
Inside, authorities discovered the dismembered remains of 23-year-old nightclub hostess Fan Man-yee, who had been abducted over a debt to a Triad member. In a horrifying detail that shocked the public, Fan’s decapitated head had been sewn into a Hello Kitty doll, while other body parts were hidden in bags and plush toys scattered around the apartment.
Investigators learned that Fan owed approximately HK$20,000 to gangster Chan Man-lok, who, along with accomplices Leung Shing-cho and Leung Wai-lun, abducted her and subjected her to weeks of torture. According to Ah Fong, Fan endured burns from hot objects, repeated beatings with water pipes, and hours restrained with her hands tied above her head to prevent her from picking at her scabs. Ah Fong admitted she sometimes joined in the abuse, recalling, “I had a feeling it was for fun.”
Despite the unimaginable cruelty, the three men denied killing Fan, attempting to shift blame during their trial. Ultimately, the court convicted them of manslaughter rather than murder, citing insufficient evidence from the dismembered remains to establish the exact cause of death. They were each sentenced to life imprisonment. Justice Peter Nguyen commented, “Never in Hong Kong in recent years has a court heard of such cruelty, depravity, callousness, brutality, violence and viciousness. The public is entitled to protection from people such as you.”
The case, known as the “Hello Kitty murder,” left a lasting scar on the local community. Residents abandoned the apartment building, fearing it was haunted by Fan’s spirit. Though the building was later purchased and demolished in 2012, the memory of this gruesome crime continues to haunt Hong Kong.
