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SCMP Reporter

THE crime was simple, calculated and brutal, and it was to become one of the most notorious massacres in American history.

 The three men slipped into an illegal gambling club in Seattle after midnight, tied up the occupants and robbed them of thousands of dollars. The 14 victims were then shot in the head.

  There were meant to be no clues and no witnesses. The murderers were making a statement written in cold blood. It was a deadly power play for control of Seattle's Chinatown.

   But they made one mistake. Not everyone died.

     Despite being severely wounded from gun shots to his neck and jaw, Wai Chin managed to untie himself and crawl out of the Wah Mee Club and call for help.

    Chin not only survived, he also identified Willie Mak Kwan-fai, Benjamin Ng Kin and Tony Ng Wai-chiu as the killers of his 13 friends in what became known as the ''Chinatown Massacre''.

  He knew the three young men, who were well-known in Chinatown, and considered them ''friends''. That was 10 years ago, and the three culprits have long since been convicted of the mass murder and robbery.

   But even after all this time the hangman's noose is still waiting for Mak.

 Legal moves have taken him a step closer to the gallows and if the death sentence is carried out, he will be the first Hong Kong criminal to be executed in the US.

  Last month, a US judge ordered a new trial to determine whether the 32-year-old should be sentenced to hang.

   Mak, who was born in Hong Kong and emigrated to the US in 1975, was originally found guilty of 13 counts of aggravated first degree murder, the only crime punishable by death in Washington state.

   He was sentenced to death once but succeeded in having the sentence overturned in a 1991 appeal. Now he faces a new sentencing hearing - called the penalty phase - before a new jury.

  In Washington state, the penalty phase of a trial is only held following conviction for a capital crime. The jury reconvenes to determine whether the defendant will receive the death penalty.

  Feelings about Mak in Chinatown are running as high as they were a decade ago.

  Charlie Lui, a restaurant worker at the Wah Kue Cafe, like at least nine of the victims, called for Mak to go to the gallows.

   ''He should be hanged,'' Mr Lui said. ''An eye for an eye.''    Chinese community leader Assunter Ng, the publisher of the Seattle Chinese Post, also believes the death sentence should be carried out.

 ''The Chinese community do believe he should be executed,'' she said.

           Ms Ng said Chin, who died of old age in a nursing home on May 3, told her in a chance Chinatown meeting that he also wanted Mak to hang.

      She said the relatives she had spoken to also wanted to see Mak hanged. ''A lot of people in the community want the death penalty.''   The widow of one of the victims told Ms Ng it was pointless to keep raising the case and she could no longer bear to read articles about the massacre.

  ''They don't want to talk about it, the community just wants to forget it,'' Ms Ng said. ''It has brought them so much pain.

  ''They just want to get on with their lives. It has hurt the business community so badly. Nobody wants to come here to shop. It is only just getting back to normal.''   Mrs M. Chinn, the widow of victim Henning Chinn, said: ''I wanted the death penalty. I think we all did, all of the family.''    Ms Ng, who was born and raised in Hong Kong, said a large number of the Chinese community was made up of immigrants from China who do not understand why the case is taking so long, and why Mak is still alive as he was sentenced to death nearly 10 years ago.

      ''It is difficult for the immigrants to understand the law, that even a criminal would get a fair trial,'' Ms Ng said.

  ''They believe he would have been shot four times already in China. Mak is still fighting it and, according to the law, he has the right to appeal.''   The mahjong parlour killings overshadowed even the gangland slaying of seven mobsters in the notorious Valentine's Day massacre in Chicago in 1929.

  Mak and Benjamin Ng already had something of a reputation. Police said they had become a two-man crime wave terrorising Seattle's Chinatown for five years from 1978.

   Mak and Benjamin Ng, who is serving a life term, saw the Wah Mee Club massacre as their stepping stone to the big time.

  If they had not been caught, police believe they would have taken over the Chinese underworld in Seattle.

  After being arrested, the pair were convicted of or connected to 16 murders, one attempted murder, the wounding of six others, robbery, burglary, assault, theft and planning other multiple murders, robberies and rapes.

  Mak told a Seattle court in 1983 he had gone to the club on February 19, 1983, to beat up a member of a rival gang and was outside in a car when the shootings took place.

  But prosecution witnesses said Mak and Benjamin Ng had bragged only days before the attack of plans to rob the club and kill all the witnesses because they were well known in Chinatown.

  One witness told the court Mak had recently lost between US$20,000 (HK$155,00) and US$30,000 gambling at the club. Tony Ng was also reported to have lost money at the parlour before the raid.

  Benjamin Ng, who denied pulling the trigger, was sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole.

  Even though he was well known in the club, jurors were told that Benjamin Ng, like the other two, had not worn a mask but had used gloves, indicating they had no intention of leaving anyone alive.

  The victims, including a woman, were forced to lie on the ground, ''hog-tied'' and methodically shot in the head.

 Mak and the two Ngs left the club believing they had silenced all the witnesses, mainly middle-aged Chinese restaurateurs.

    Dr Larry Duckett testified that Chin could have drowned in his blood had he not been able to loosen the ropes and crawl out of the door into a side alley and call to a passer-by.

  For six weeks Chin, who was then 61, had to wear a device that ''looks like an outrigger on a canoe'' to hold his broken jaw together while it healed, Dr Duckett told the court.

  At the trial, he identified Mak and the two Ngs during his grisly testimony as he recalled the deaths of his friends.

     Wallets, credit cards and spent shell casings were strewn around the floor of the Wah Mee Club, meaning ''beautiful place'' in Chinese.

   Detective Henry Gruber testified that the scene grew more bloody ''as the night wore on''.

  Twelve of the dead victims were found in the main part of the club, while the 13th, Bill Wong, was sprawled on the floor in a pool of blood in the club's office.

  The only married couple, Moo Min Mar and Jean Mar, were found with towels over their heads.

  Police said a large sum of money was stolen from the victims, who were aged between 20 and 60 years old.

  Chin had no problem identifying Benjamin Ng, who used to call him qu fu, or uncle.

    After Benjamin Ng was convicted, the Mars' daughter, Linda, said: ''There is no excuse for killing 13 people including my parents. But this is the United States, everybody has their own opinion and I wanted death.''   In a sign of how cool, calculated and cold-blooded they were, after the murders Benjamin Ng went to see his girlfriend, while Mak went bowling.

  Both men, who were members of the Hop Sing Tong, were arrested within hours.

  Mak, who left Hong Kong in his teens, was an unemployed high school drop-out and was at his Seattle home when the police arrived.

  Benjamin Ng, who was 20 at the time and worked as a dealer at the Hop Sing Club in Seattle, was in bed with his girlfriend, Kennis Izumi, when picked up by the police.

    The third attacker, Tony Ng, fled to Hong Kong after the shooting. He was later convicted in the US of robbery and assault but was acquitted of murder and sentenced to life in jail.

   During Mak's time on Death Row his lawyers, a number of whom have offered their services for free because it is such a high-profile case, have campaigned to have his sentence reduced to life imprisonment.

    They argued in the 1991 appeal that his original defence lawyers failed to present evidence during the trial's penalty phase that may have convinced the jury to give him life without parole instead of death.

  In a written ruling, US District Judge William Dwyer ruled Mak was denied his Sixth Amendment right to effective assistance of counsel during the trial's penalty phase.

  The judge wrote in 1991 that Mak's parents could have testified that he had been a good student and dutiful son who worked and gave money to the family.

  He also stated the defence could have presented expert testimony on the culture of Hong Kong Chinese and the adjustment difficulties many experience in the US.

  At issue in last month's ruling was whether Washington state law allowed a second penalty phase, or whether Mak's successful appeal meant he automatically won a life sentence.

  But last month King County Superior Court Judge Laura Inveen ruled there was nothing to prevent a second penalty phase. Under the ruling, Mak's 13 first-degree murder convictions stand.

  Washington is one of the few states that still hangs prisoners.

  Mak, who has been on Death Row at the state prison in Walla Walla since his conviction, was originally scheduled to hang on March 9, 1987, but a stay was granted.

  In January, convicted child killer Westley Allan Dodd went to the gallows in Walla Walla, becoming the first criminal to be hanged in the US since June 20, 1963.

  The only other person from Hong Kong facing the death penalty in the US is accused mass murderer Charles Ng, who is awaiting trial in California.

   Charles Ng, who was born in Hong Kong but moved to the US and joined the US Marines, is awaiting trial in California for the gruesome sex-torture killings of 12 people. He is being held in solitary confinement in Folsom Prison, San Francisco.

  At Mak's new sentencing hearing the jury will hear much of the evidence provided during the first trial.

  They must then decide whether Mak deserves to hang.



Should Willie Mak hang?