Braemar Hill murders
The “Braemar Hill murders” ( Chinese 寶馬 山 雙 屍 案 ) are the murders of two young British residents on Braemar Hill (Hong Kong) by a group of five young criminals on April 20, 1985. The killings also gained attention beyond Hong Kong due to widespread media and political reactions. They are considered to be one of the most brutal and disturbing crimes in Hong Kong history .
background
17 year old Kenneth McBride and 18 year old Nicola Myers were a couple and attended Island School in Hong Kong. Both were known and loved at the school. McBride was president of the local student union, captain of the rowing team and member of the debating club. Myers was considered an intelligent student, with an interest in languages and the desire to work as an interpreter later.
assassination
In the afternoon of the day, the couple decided to take a trip to Braemar Hill, part of the Tai Tam Landscape Park , near which McBride lived. They wanted to use the day together to study for their upcoming advanced level exams . They looked for a remote and less frequented path on the slope of the mountain. The group of later perpetrators met earlier on the same day, consisting of the 24-year-old Pang Shun-yee (彭信義), the 20-year-old Tam Sze-foon (譚 士 歡), the 25-year-old Chiu Wai-man (趙偉文) , the 17-year-old Cheung Yau-hang (張有恆) and the 16-year-old Won Sam-lung (尹三龍). According to statements (including Wons), Pang was the leader of the group. At the beginning, the group set out for the summit to steal the cable from the local antenna station. After several failed attempts, the group made their way back down into the valley, discovering McBride and Myers. The group thought the two were Europeans, who - according to the group's assumption - must be wealthy and therefore decided to rob them. When the group encountered McBride and Myers, they defended themselves and stated that they only had one HK $ with them. The group didn’t believe the couple’s statement and began beating them down heavily. McBride was severely beaten and hand and foot cuffed in the course of the crime. In the course of the act, Tam McBride stole athletic shoes, which later turned out to be an important piece of evidence in the legal proceedings. According to the statements of the other perpetrators, Pang now forced his group to abuse the two of them. While Pang Myers was raping, maltreating and beating McBride with tremendous severity, the other group members continued to beat him. Myers' genitals were then penetrated with a stick and bottle. In the course of the abuse, Pang decided that McBride and Myers would have to die or they could identify the group. After the murder, the group left the mountain and destroyed their textbooks along the way.
McBride's lifeless body was found, with over 100 injuries to the body, tied up and strangled with his armband. Myers' body was found half bare, covered with more than 500 cuts, a smashed jaw and an eyeball hanging out of the eye socket.
examination
When McBride and Myers did not return home on the evening of the day, the families went looking that night. However, when they were unable to find them, they called the police. On the morning of the next day, the couple's two lifeless bodies were discovered by a jogger. The horrific murders and the extent of the brutality shocked the public, so Hong Kong police paid particular attention to the investigation. More than 800 police officers and several employees from the British Forces Overseas Hong Kong were dispatched to search the crime scene. The police discovered some wooden sticks that were believed to have been used as weapons. Furthermore, the torn textbooks were found along the hillside. In addition, the police were able to find traces of semen on Myers' body and partial fingerprints on the torn books and sticks.
However, due to the state of the art forensics at the time , it was not possible to use the evidence sufficiently to identify the murderers. Police interviewed more than 10,000 people who lived in the area and also reached out to members of the Triads . The murder shook the emigrant and expat community at the time , especially since the murders involved two British people. This was very rare. A few months after the murders, a Hong Kong businessman anonymously donated HK $ 500,000 to the Hong Kong police as a reward for anyone who could provide enough information about the murder. An anonymous member of the triads contacted the police, who reported unusual activity by one of their members. The evidence led the police to Pang and showed that he was involved in the crime.
Arrest and Detention
Pang was arrested by Hong Kong police in November 1985; the remaining members of the group for the next 48 hours. Although the members made statements about the crime, only Won confessed to the murder of McBride and Myers. Pang, Tam and Chui were found guilty of murder and sentenced to death in the following trial. The death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment in 1993 by the Governor-in-Council. Two of the killers, Cheung and Won, were minors at the time of the crime and were held for an indefinite period under the UK's " At Her Majesty's Pleasure " legal concept .
After Hong Kong surrendered sovereignty to China in 1997, Wong appealed to McBride and Myers' family for forgiveness. In 1998, the McBride and Myers family announced that they had pardoned Won for his crime and appealed to Tung Chee Hwa , head of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region , for a lesser sentence. Won's sentence was then reduced to 27 years and the Cheungs to 35 years in prison. Won was released from Stanley Prison in 2004 in front of the press and was put on a rehabilitation program. Upon his release, Won stated that the families' forgiveness had moved him emotionally, but that it was difficult to accept. But he wanted to use the opportunity given to him to fully integrate into society again.
Cheung appealed to the court to lower his sentence to the level of their wons. However, this was rejected by the court on April 6, 2006, on the grounds that in view of the seriousness of the crime, the first-time reduction of the sentence to 35 years had been more than generous. Cheung was finally released in December 2007 from Shek Pik Prison on Lantau Island .
Tam died while in prison in 2009 due to cancer.
Perpetrator
The perpetrators did not appear to the police in advance of the offense - apart from minor offenses. Until the time of the crime, Pang, the leader of the group, was a casual worker and a low member of the Fuk Yee Hing ( Chinese aden 義興 ) triads , where he had a reputation as a thug and bully. Cheung was rejected by his family at the age of 4 and left the orphanage at the age of 6. At 13 he was reinstated by his abusive father. At the age of 14 he dropped out of school and earned his income from doing odd jobs as a servant, in the catering trade and as an assistant to open the taxi doors at the ferry port. When Cheung became unemployed, his father rejected him again. At the time he was recruited by Pang, he was living on the streets of Hong Kong. Won was working as a cook in a local restaurant at the time of the crime.
aftermath
In memory of Kenneth McBride and Nicola Myers, families, friends and the Island School founded the Nicola Myers and Kenneth McBride Memorial Fund to provide educational opportunities for disadvantaged children in Hong Kong.
The 1992 film Suburb Murder ( Chinese 香港 姦殺 奇案 ) is loosely based on the story of murder. The film From the Queen to the Chief Executive ( Chinese 等候 董建華 發落 ; 2001) tells the plea for clemency from one of the perpetrators for amnesty.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b The Braemar Hill Murders HD - Video , Dailymotion, July 30, 2013
- ↑ a b The Braemar Hill Murders ( Memento of the original from April 29, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Hong Kong timeout, April 25, 2012
- ↑ a b Killers Remorse Not Enough , South China Morning Post , October 3, 2016
- ↑ Hong Kong Murders: The Braemar Hill murders , July 26, 2013
- ↑ Release of killer marks end of era , South China Morning Post , October 03, 2016
- ↑ Nicola Myers and Kenneth McBride Memorial Fund , English Schools Foundation, June 4, 2016
- ^ Memorial fund benefits 103 pupils , South China Morning Post , November 21, 2004
