In 1999, 23-year-old Hong Kong nightclub hostess Fan Man-yee was abducted by three men—Chan Man-lok, Leung Wai-lun, and Leung Shing-cho—after she stole Chan’s wallet containing approximately HK$4,000 (roughly US$500).
Chan demanded that Fan return the money along with an additional fee of HK$10,000 (roughly US$1,300).
Although Fan quickly returned the stolen amount, she told Chan she needed more time to gather the extra fee.
Seeking retribution, the trio kidnapped Fan and held her captive in an apartment on Granville Road in Tsim Sha Tsui.
During her month-long captivity, Fan was beaten with metal bars, sometimes while strung up and used as a punching bag.
On one occasion, she was kicked in the head approximately fifty times.
The captors rubbed spices into her wounds and burned her legs and feet with candle wax and hot plastic, leaving her unable to walk.
In a sickening twist, the men forced Fan to smile and claim she enjoyed the beatings.
When she refused, the torture intensified.
Fan ultimately succumbed to her injuries between April 14 and April 15, 1999.
In a gruesome effort to conceal the crime, her captors dismembered and boiled her remains, placing her skull inside a large Hello Kitty mermaid doll.
The three men were arrested and convicted of manslaughter, each receiving a life sentence with the possibility of parole after 20 years.
In a disturbing twist, the Hello Kitty murder inspired the production of two horror films – Human Pork Chop and There is a Secret in My Soup, both released in 2001.
In April 2014, one of the perpetrators, Leung Shing-cho, was released from prison after serving a reduced sentence.
However, in August 2022, he was imprisoned again for assaulting a 10-year-old girl.
As of 2024, Chan Man-lok and Leung Wai-lun remain incarcerated.
To this day, the Hello Kitty murder remains one of the most infamous and disturbing crimes in Hong Kong’s history.
