Murder in Hong Kong: when three foreigners were hanged for sampan killing in 1904
The killing of a Chinese woman on a sampan and a four-year-old were deemed particularly heinous having been committed by ‘a class superior’ – two Americans and a Swede
“The Murder Case. Prisoners Found Guilty. Death Sentence.” ran the headline in the South China Morning Post on December 24, 1904.
“The Supreme Court was crowded yesterday afternoon when the trial of three men, Charles Smith (20), Erik Hogmann (22) and William Nason (17), on a charge of murdering Chan Yee (aged 41), a sampan woman, and a baby aged 4, on November 27 of the present year, was resumed before the Chief Justice (Sir H.S. Berkeley),” the report said.
Hong Kong murder files: the British soldiers sentenced to hang for Chinese woman’s brutal 1952 killing
The defendants were described by Smith’s defence counsel, Hon. Dr Hoi Kai, as “three young men, in a sort of madness, thinking to go to Singapore in a Sampan”. It was contested whether, the men having seized the boat, the woman had jumped or been pushed overboard with the child before drowning.
Hoi told the jury the prisoners had been described as belonging to a “certain class known as beachcombers” but contended they had been anxious to work.
“Day after day, month after month, they were rejected. With starvation before them, they decided
on the possibility of acting as they did.”
