Inside the mind of Hong Kong serial killer known as the Jars Killer, 35 years after his arrest
The crimes of Hong Kong’s first serial killer were so shocking that a female forensic scientist was removed from the case and only men were allowed to serve on the jury
There are a handful of Hong Kong crimes that have slipped into local folklore and are best known by their monikers. Most famous are the Hello Kitty Murder (1999) and the Milkshake Murder (2003), but long before these there was the Jars Killer.
Lam Kor-wan is now 62 and serving a life sentence at the maximum-security Shek Pik Prison on Lantau Island for a string of grisly murders in the early 1980s. He holds the dubious distinction of being Hong Kong’s first serial killer and his reign of terror came to an end 35 years ago this week, when he was apprehended on August 17, 1982, at the age of 27.
Most press coverage at the time focused on the macabre details of the case – women’s sexual organs preserved in jars of formaldehyde, necrophilia and reams of pornographic material. It’s hard to feel anything but repugnance for a man who committed such monstrous murders, particularly one who showed no remorse, but consider the kind of person he was.
Lam had always been a loner. When he was growing up in Malaysia, his father used to beat him and his mother. He once hit Lam so hard that the boy was knocked unconscious. The abuse stopped when they moved to Hong Kong and Lam was in his teens, but he had trouble making friends at school; his electronic chess set was his closest friend. As an adult he got a job as a taxi driver and chose to work the night shift because it suited his temperament. He continued to live in the family home in To Kwa Wan, sharing a room with his younger brother.