Girl tied up, assaulted and murdered after refusing to wear costume during photo shoot, Hong Kong court hears
Prosecution tells jury how man beat 15-year-old repeatedly with a ketchup bottle before disposing of her body in suitcase
A man taped and tied up a 15-year-old girl and sexually assaulted her as she suffocated, prosecutors told a Hong Kong court on Wednesday.
Having asked the girl to his home for a photo shoot, Lau Cheung-fai found a “terrible” way to dispose of Kwok Wai-ming’s body, the High Court heard.
“As terrible as it may sound, the accused put the body of the deceased into a suitcase,” prosecutor Martyn Richmond said, adding Lau revealed everything to police after his arrest.
“He even described having to force the lock closed,” Richmond said.
Opening the 10-day trial, the prosecutor described how the defendant and the “talkative” girl – who liked to wear coloured contact lenses and dye her hair – had arranged to meet at Langham Place shopping centre in Mong Kok, after she had agreed to model for him, on December 8, 2014.
Lau is accused of murdering the “typical Hong Kong teenager” in his flat near the mall after she refused to change into a costume.
“In a detailed and shocking account, the accused explains how he took a glass ketchup bottle and struck the deceased repeatedly to her head,” the prosecutor said, citing the police interview.
Kwok fought back but was subdued by nylon cables tied around her neck and ankles. Lau wrapped adhesive tape around her wrists, then her head and face.
He forced her to drink Chinese wine, removed her underwear and indecently assaulted her, Richmond said, adding that by then Kwok was likely to have been “asphyxiating”.
“She was suffocating. She was dying,” he said.
Richmond said Lau then put the body into a suitcase which he wheeled to the nearby Harbour Hotel.
The details of what happened in that hotel room would be “revealed” by Lau himself later in the trial, the prosecutor told the jury.
The trial continues on Thursday.
