Senior officer recalls how a string of nightclub hostess murders was cracked
When a 29-year-old masseuse reported to police that she had been raped, robbed and imprisoned for three days by two men in 1997, detective Wai Mu-lam was confident that he could crack the case.
But Mr Wai, who was a senior inspector with the Marine Regional Crime Unit at the time, did not know that the masseuse was the only survivor of a series of rape-murders until he and his colleagues pieced the case together with the information of other missing nightclub hostesses.
Mr Wai, who is now a chief inspector and assistant Western divisional commander, worked to arrest the two culprits and a third accomplice, who were later found to be involved in a total of three murders and four rapes.
Mr Wai, who described the murders as the most gruesome he had handled in his 27 years in the force, was speaking ahead of the screening on TVB Jade at 7.30pm tomorrow of an RTHK-produced docudrama On the Beat II which depicts the serial murders.
The murders came to light in January 1997 when the 29-year-old masseuse reported to the police that she had been raped after being lured to a holiday villa in Cheung Chau by one of the culprits, Chan Ka-chun, 27, who approached her by posing as a customer.
Chan and his accomplice Leung Sze-lai, 23, imprisoned her for three days, during which they raped her, took $10,000 from her bank account and threatened to entomb her in a home-made coffin.