Hong Kong is famously a city of skyscrapers; a concrete jungle in the most literal sense of the term; with by far and away the greatest number of skyscrapers in the world. A whopping 546 such buildings fill the city’s skyline compared to a mere 302 in New York City, and 241 in Dubai. It is a city in which one struggles to find a single “normal” house amidst the unending expanse of skyscrapers and tower blocks that dominate the metropolitan area.
As a result of this image one may be forgiven for thinking that not a patch of greenery exists in the whole territory, and that every square inch of land in the place is surrendered to the endless concrete obelisks for which the city is so famous. This could not be further from the truth however, as a great expanse of beautiful countryside dominates the Special Administrative Region.
It turns out that despite the extreme density of the metropolitan area, only 25% of the territory of Hong Kong is actually built on as of 2022, and 40% of the whole territory is designated as protected national parks, in which all but the most modest of construction is completely banned. Indeed one only has to look north of Tsz Wan Shan and Chuk Un to behold a seemingly unending cascade of peaks, mountains, and greenery which stand even taller, and somehow even grander than the great glass and steel monoliths of Central and Causeway Bay.
The beautiful and expansive greenery of Hong Kong is as much a part of the city’s identity as the skyscrapers, and it proves easily accessible by bus, boat, or train, consequently even the most stressed and overworked of Hong Kong’s 7.4 million residents can find themselves lost in nature, disconnected from the stresses of city life, and relaxed within 30 minutes of leaving their apartment.
As much as it may be all but impossible to imagine such circumstances today however, in times gone by the hills of Hong Kong have proven to be anything but tranquil, as during particularly unsettling times, their sharp cascading inclines have been transformed into a macabre amphitheatre, hosting some truly barbaric acts of human cruelty. Everything from barbaric mass killings perpetrated by Hong Kong’s British and Japanese colonial masters, to senseless acts of murder committed by opportunistic, and morally bankrupt criminals.
It is one of the latter such incidents which we will be looking at today. A most horrific incident, in which two teenagers, Kenneth McBride, then 17 years old, and Nicola Myers, then 18 years old, went to take a stress relieving stroll in the forests near their home, and by the cruel hands of a small band most evil and foul, never returned.
It was a double murder that quite literally and proverbially tore the heart out of Hong Kong, as the city’s residents struggled to process not only the brutality of the crime, but also had to come to terms with what was perceived by many as the double standard nature of colonial policing, as many of the cities native Chinese residents noted an above and beyond police response, that they simply weren’t used to receiving themselves.
The Victims
As ever I, George, the author of today’s piece, would like to do what I can to draw more attention to the victims of the crimes we cover here on the Casual Criminalist. Invariably, the world of true crime pays significantly more heed to the perpetrators of wicked murders, undeservedly so of course, rather than the victims of the crimes, the people whose names and stories we really need to be remembering and commemorating within ourselves.
Tragically, the Braemar Hill Murders are no exception to this rule, and as an author, you find yourself flooded with easily accessible articles and sources regarding the wicked perpetrators of today’s tale, but by comparison sources for the victims come up comparatively dry. I, George, as the author of today’s video have done what I can to try to right this wrong, and have trawled through newspaper archives, reached out to the few acquaintances of Kenneth McBride and Nicola Myers I was able to track down in Hong Kong, and asked the Hong Kong Police Force themselves for comment in order to attempt to bring together as much information as possible about the pair. As ever, I have also used my natty little research hack of actually reading the Chinese sources.
Having done this I can report that what is known is that both Kenneth and Nicola attended Island School, an exclusive, prestigious, and expensive private International school in Mid-Levels, itself an exclusive, prestigious, and expensive district of Hong Kong Island populated mostly by wealthy expatriates, and a spattering of local Hong Kongers.
Both were beloved by their community both inside and outside of school. Kenneth, a native of Scotland who was aged 17 at the time of his murder led Island School’s students’ union, was captain of the school rowing team, and a member of the school’s debate team. His former teacher Chris Forse, speaking in a 2004 interview with The Scotsman described Kenneth as a smart, and beloved member of the school community, and fondly remembers Kenneth speaking stirringly about apartheid in the school assembly the day before his death. Such positive sentiments were echoed by Nicholas Riley, another then member of the Island School faculty interviewed for today’s video, who stated that although they never taught Kenneth directly, his presence on campus was always noted as a positive one. David James, then vice-principal of Island School, proudly recalls Kenneth’s extensive charity work, such as when he rallied the school to knit squares for Soweto — a charity drive which saw people across the world knitting various garments for disadvantaged children in Africa.
Nicola was a budding young scholar, who took a great interest in the city she found herself residing in on account of her parents’ work. Through living in Hong Kong she developed a love of Chinese culture, as well as a rare (for western expats) fluency in both Mandarin and Cantonese, she had hoped to make this passion her profession after completing her further education, and had ambitions of working either in Hong Kong or the Mainland as a translator and interpreter. Simon Boyd, a former classmate of both Kenneth and Nicola, commented in a television interview that she was a popular girl, sentiments again echoed by Nicholas Riley, who said while being interviewed for this piece that she was every bit as popular on campus as Kenneth.
The Discovery
Kenneth McBride and Nicola Myers left the McBride family home in Braemar Hill Mansions at one o’clock on Saturday the 20th of April 1985, intent on taking a leisurely stroll through the forest near their home and finding somewhere tranquil to settle down and do some studying. This had become a regular routine for the pair, who in the face of looming A-Level exams often found the time to escape and study together.
Kenneth’s arm was bound in a sling, having recently torn a tricep during an inter school rowing competition, so consequently the pair took it steadier than usual, telling their parents they were going to find a nice spot not too far from home rather than heading to their usual, and further away spot deeper in the forest.
As the afternoon became the evening, and the clock struck seven, the pair still hadn’t come back home, and the McBride family began to get concerned, reasoning that even dedicated and hard working students such as Kenneth and Nicola were unlikely to be spending so long studying outside in the relative heat of a Hong Kong April.
Fear had yet to set in however in the McBride household, as the obvious assumption was made that they probably had just headed to Nicola’s home instead, a somewhat annoying notion for sure, but this was in the mid 1980’s, long before the wide proliferation of mobile phones, so not checking in for so long was hardly uncommon. Just to ease her mind, Kenneth’s mother made a call to the Myers household, where worryingly, she was told that neither hide nor hair of either of the young couple had been seen since Nicola left in the early hours of the morning… panic began to set in, panic that only worsened as the clock kept on ticking, and neither Kenneth nor Nicola came home.
As evening became night and darkness swept over Braemar Hills, Kenneth’s father took a torch and went out to search for the couple, reasoning that he had a rough idea where they must have headed despite their deviation from their normal route. Sadly, he found no sign of the pair, and called off his search at one in the morning.
Following a sleepless night in an increasingly distress riddled apartment, the McBride family once again tried to search for the couple as soon as the sun rose that morning. They found one of Kenneth’s usually pristine textbooks torn and discarded on a hillside not far from their home, but otherwise found no traces of the pair. The ruined textbook however convinced the family that something horrible had clearly happened, and after relaying information of their discovery back to Nicola’s family, a missing persons report was filed with the Royal Hong Kong Police, who immediately assigned officers to comb the area around Braemar Hill to find the pair.
It didn’t take long for the pair to be found, although it would not be the police that found them; the following day on Sunday the 21st of April a panicked and frantic call was made to the Royal Hong Kong Police. A bank manager, and fellow resident of Braemar Hill Mansions had stumbled upon the deceased remains of Kenneth and Nicola while out on his morning run. When he found them he was out of breath and exhausted from his ascent up the peak, and at first he struggled to quite believe what he was seeing, but as oxygen returned to his system and his thinking cleared he fell to his knees in shock at the sight of the battered and broken teenagers that lay before him.
The police rushed to the scene following his call, one of the first on the scene was Detective Trevor Collins, who commented the following on the discovery:
“I was with the Organised and Serious Crime Bureau at the time, and we were called out almost immediately, once they discovered the bodies. I remember Kenneth, he was injured all over (his body), there were bruises on his neck and his hands and feet were tied up. I remember his shoes were missing too, very odd…”
Tragically, the perpetrators appear to have saved the worst of their treatment for Nicola, who was found almost completely naked, and it was later discovered that she had been raped. As if this wasn’t bad enough, it also appeared as though the physical attack on Nicola had been particularly brutal and drawn out, as over 500 separate wounds and injuries were found on the poor girl’s remains. Detective Collins commented the following on the discovery of Nicola’s remains:
“It was an extremely violent attack, there was a huge amount of injuries on both Kenneth and Nicola, it was pretty horrific… I’d worked in homicide for a number of years … and I’d never come across a body with that many injuries.”
Dave Hodson, the former Assistant Commissioner of the Royal Hong Kong Police led the Hong Kong Island CID at the time, and was also a first hand witness to the crime scene commented the following on the discovery:
“I received the early call out as it were and went to the scene, as soon as I got there and reported back that they were two expats, who it appeared had been brutally murdered then the reaction was that this should be dealt with immediately by the premier investigations group.”
Investigation
As the search for two missing persons tragically became a double homicide investigation, the matter at hand for the police became piecing together exactly what had actually happened to Kenneth and Nicola, and bringing the perpetrators to justice. Detective Collins continued to be among the top men on the ground at the scene of the crime, and he commented the following regarding the beginning of the investigation:
“We conducted a search of the area to try to find as much evidence and exhibits as we could. We eventually used almost 400 men to comb the area. It’s quite a difficult area to comb you know? It’s a hillside, country park, not too many pathways so sweeping the area for exhibits was difficult.
We had to use a helicopter (to move them) because their bodies couldn’t be carried down the hillside, the hill was too difficult, so we arranged a helicopter to pick up the bodies and take them to the British Military Hospital, then they were taken to the Victoria Public Mortuary, where their post mortems were held the next day.”
After moving Kenneth and Nicola to Victoria Public Mortuary no expense was spared in trying to piece together what had happened to the couple and finding their killer. Those 400 men mentioned in the previous quote were bolstered further by three squadrons of the Police Tactical Unit; heavily armed officers whose regular patrols saw them deep inside triad territory. To find out more about the ongoing investigations of the crime scene, let us turn once again to Detective Collins:
“So it was a very very difficult scene, again there’s a lot of shrubbery there, a lot of rubbish, and everything we found was tagged, photographed and catalogued, so it was a very difficult scene. We found exhibits everywhere, quite a lot of items were found in a small stream which runs from close to where the bodies were found down to the back of Braemar Hill Mansions, this included a lot of school books, exercise books, a lot of them were torn.”
The search proved to be one of the most extensive and expensive in Hong Kong’s history. Resources committed to the investigation continued to expand, eventually growing to include up to 800 police officers and several hundred soldiers from the Royal Hong Kong Regiment, as well as a dedicated helicopter, which scoured the hillside during all daylight hours of the investigation. For more insight on the extensiveness of this search, let us turn again to Dave Hodson:
“I think multiple homicides are always unusual and have never been the accepted state of affairs. Two people being killed at the time was unusual, and frankly, for them to be two expats was a whole other matter.”
Keep the wording of that quote in mind, because we will be coming back to that later.
Initial investigations at the crime scene proved largely fruitless. Despite the recovery of Kenneth and Nicola’s bodies as well as their belongings, little evidence emerged that would allow the police to begin building a picture of what had even happened, much less who might have done it, as Detective Collins put it:
“Not one person heard, saw, or had any idea really of what had happened. Very very difficult. We didn’t have any eye witnesses, we didn’t have any physical evidence per se.”
There was however some silver lining to an increasingly grey and clouded investigation: three battered and blood stained pieces of wood that the police believed to be the murder weapons, or at least some of the murder weapons. What’s more, one of the pieces of wood had a clear and identifiable fingerprint that did not belong to either Nicola or Kenneth, and several more such prints were found on the tattered and scattered remains of textbooks and other study supplies that the police had recovered from the hillside.
This ray of hope was soon dissipated however, as for now at least the fingerprints would prove to be a dead end, all recovered fingerprints not belonging to Nicola and Kenneth were fed into the Royal Hong Kong Police’s criminal fingerprint database… and no matches were found.
With the completion of Kenneth and Nicola’s post mortems on the 22nd of April the aforementioned fingerprints were supplemented with further forensic evidence, and a slightly clearer picture of the killings began to form. In addition to Nicola’s 500+ wounds, traces of semen were also found on her, as well as splatters of blood that didn’t belong to either her or Kenneth. From this they were able to surmise that at least one male had to have been involved in the killings, but not much else.
After Kenneth’s post mortem the police began to more firmly suspect that the killings were not a solo effort, and must have been carried out by a group, because despite his broken collar bone, Kenneth had sustained over 100 defensive injuries, attesting that he put up a hell of a resistance to the attackers, and casting serious doubt on the ability of one person to bring him down, as Detective Collins surmises:
“From the injuries that were discovered (on Kenneth) there were a lot of defensive type wounds so he’d obviously put up quite a struggle, so there had to be more than two culprits, let’s say.”
Sadly, all of this new forensic evidence proved to be of little utility, as the primitive state of forensic science back in the mid 1980s meant that few meaningful conclusions as to the identities of Kenneth and Nicola’s killers were able to be reached. They were able to surmise for sure that at least one male had to have been involved in the killings, but little else definite.
As the recovery of evidence from the crime scene at Braemar Hill began to slow to a trickle, it appeared as though no decisive case proving piece of evidence was going to emerge, and Hong Kong Island CID were left with the unenviable task of drawing up a strategy for finding Kenneth and Nicola’s killers.
With their leads so far amounting to: a group of people, one of whom is male, the police did all they could do in such a situation, and cast a wide far reaching net in the hope of securing a breakthrough and snaring their killers by pure chance. For more, let’s throw it back to the ever valuable testimony of Detective Collins:
“We decided to look at possible suspects, and what we did was every single police station on Hong Kong Island to start with, any stop and search that had been conducted by any police officer involving two or more people, we would get details of those, and locate and question them.”
The investigation at, or rather from the hillside also continued, as the uniformed officers and soldiers of the Hong Kong Regiment returned to their regular duties following the conclusion of the search of the crime scene, the Organised and Serious Crime Bureau began searching the area around the crime scene; expanding outwards from where Kenneth and Nicola’s remains had been found in increasingly large circles.
As the search continued both in the streets of Hong Kong and in the countryside around Braemar Hill a number of leading theories began to be floated by investigating detectives.
One such theory hypothesised that it may have been a mugging gone wrong, that Braemar Hill, being well known as a wealthy expat enclave, had been targeted by a local gang eager to rob some well heeled foreigners, and this robbery then escalated to homicide either by accident, or out of rage when Kenneth and Nicola were found to be all but empty pocketed.
Another theory suggested that the killings may have been carried out as part of a triad initiation ceremony; eager and aspiring would be triads sent out to kill some foreigners in order to prove their loyalty to prospective criminal family.
These explanations were later dismissed, but little did the investigating detectives know that between the guess of a triad connection, and a rage-fueled mugging gone wrong, they were uncannily close to the truth.
Eventually the police had to shake up their approach yet again. Several weeks of further combing the countryside and stop and search investigations had come up empty-handed, and delivered nothing but confusing and unhelpful evidence and empty rumours. They expanded their operation to include door to door questioning, starting at Braemar Hill Mansions, and gradually outwards to the districts of Tin Hau, North Point, and Fortress Hill that sat at the base of Braemar Hill. On this further expanded search Detective Collins commented that:
“It ended up with some 18,000 people being interviewed in the end, and about 180 (people of interest) that we sort of tried to locate and question, who were identified as possible suspects. At the same time we looked at finding informants, looking for information on people who might know anything, might be dealing with it, might have talked about it.”
Methodical this ever expanding approach may have been, but the leave no stone unturned approach to the investigation soon turned up another problem: the Royal Hong Kong Police was ending up with so much data, that they could hardly process and sift through it all. One day it was decided that enough was enough, and after pulling himself free of a waist deep pile of interview notes Commissioner Roy Henry petitioned Governor Edward Youde for funds to procure a new computer data entry and filing system from England, one that had been introduced following the rampage of the Yorkshire Ripper, Peter Sutcliffe and allowed officers to view evidence from multiple crime scenes simultaneously. Henry was duly handed a blank cheque by the governor, who was most keen to see Kenneth and Nicola’s killer brought to justice.
It was none other than Detective Collins who received the honour of flying to London to get familiarised with the new system, and he commented the following regarding it:
“I’m not sure it helped us solve it, but it helped us speed up the way we could handle the information that was coming in.”
While in London being trained on this new system, Detective Collins took key pieces of evidence to the British Home Office Forensic Laboratories for analysis, and made use of the facilities that were completely unavailable back in Hong Kong:
We had a number of forensic exhibits in the form of blood and semen, so we had a “blood grouping” as it was in those days because we didn’t have the luxury of DNA and it was a matter of eliminating people as we went along in regards to that blood grouping. There was a partial fingerprint in blood and mud with a hair (that was) all in the same mark, and it was very difficult (for us) to examine it without damaging it. We also asked them to examine under their other new methods fingerprints in particular.
But alas, all of this extra analysis would come to naught. Under the lens of the British Home Offices no-expense-spared microscopes, the fingerprints proved to be of too low a quality to be of use to the detectives.
The detectives had fully exploited all their potential forensic avenues, and had hit a dead end. There was no recovered evidence that could be taken forward to identify the suspect, and all hope for finding Kenneth and Nicola’s killers now rested with the street team striking gold.
Or did it… because according to multiple Chinese language sources examined for the completion of today’s script, as the investigation appeared to be hitting a dead end, the Royal Hong Kong Police began turning to more and more unorthodox methods as they desperately sought more information on the killing of Nicola and Kenneth. This came in the form of an unnamed local Chinese fruit seller who one day appeared in the reception of Wan Chai police station, who claimed to be a psychic, and wished to lend her assistance to the case.
The police were taken aback by these claims, but with the woman’s husband vouching that she, who didn’t otherwise speak a word of English often awoke in the middle of the night screaming and shouting in fluent English, they reasoned that there was no harm to be found in humouring the woman and seeing what she had to say, especially as the case otherwise had hit a dead end.
Dr Yeung Chi Tao, then the first clinical hypnotist recognised by the government in Hong Kong, and a man who often assisted the police with investigations was brought in to interview and examine the woman, and see if there was any legitimacy to her claims, he commented:
“She was not an eyewitness and had no connection with the two deceased (victims). She was brought in by her husband, who claimed he often found her pale as a ghost, and speaking perfect English in the dead of night. Although there was no clear connection to the case, the husband believed this may be of some use to the case, as it was hardly a secret on the streets of Hong Kong that the investigation was stalling.
The police invited me to hypnotise her, hoping to find answers buried deep in her subconscious. The moment the woman arrived she pointed straight at the superintendent in charge of the case and said in English: ‘You, help me!’ She seemed more than a little weird, and everyone present, including myself were very puzzled indeed.
Despite the weirdness of the situation, she gave me many details about the case, details which we already knew to be true, and details which would later be proved to be. We couldn’t submit any of this evidence to the court of course, but I will always find it unusual how she was perfectly correct. A lot of people say it really was the ghost of Nicola speaking through her.”
Now, I, George, as the writer of today’s piece have more than a few skepticisms about this particular detail, as I am sure many readers do also, but as ever I try to bring you the most comprehensive reporting possible of the cases we cover, and to a certain extent I was reluctant to include this detail, as in some regard it almost felt a bit disrespectful to Nicola’s memory to do so, but the fact of the matter is that in Chinese language reporting this is an inescapable detail of the case, and I felt it would be intellectually dishonest of myself to not include it, so instead I opted to do so, but have it presented in a (hopefully) appropriate context, and by making my own personal skepticisms on the claims very clear and apparent.
Eventually, with all available avenues open to them both orthodox and unorthodox having failed to produce any meaningful leads in the case, the Royal Hong Kong Police put out a $50,000HKD reward for information that led to the arrest of the killers, this yielded…. nothing. The telephone attendant sat idle, their handset gathering dust, as not one single useful tip was prompted by the offering of this reward.
Eventually, in November 1985 an anonymous Hong Kong businessman raised this reward eleven fold, by adding $500,000HKD of his own money to the pot, which boosted the sum to a nice and healthy $550,000HKD. This new reward yielded… everything! As Detective Collins explained:
“This of course was a huge sum of money in those days, and we started to get all sorts of information come in as a result of that reward. A lot of it was of no use, but eventually we got some information regarding (someone) who had gone to his triad boss and had asked for help financially because he’d committed the Braemar Hill Murders.”
Your ears did not deceive you there; in a most unlikely twist, it was in fact a triad Lieutenant of all people who called up to claim this reward, and he did so by pointing his finger firmly at one of his minions, Pang Shun Yee.
All there was to be done now was to find this Pang Shun Yee, and just maybe, god willing, the investigators could begin to get to the bottom of what had happened to Kenneth and Nicola.
The Arrest, and the Confession
You may find it surprising that a senior triad would blow the whistle on one of his own underlings, especially in light of the famous 36 Blood Oaths that supposedly bind all Triad members together under pain of horrific penance and torture for wavering loyalty, so for some perspective let us throw it back to Former Assistant Commissioner of Police, Dave Hodson:
“No it wasn’t common … to come up with large rewards, but it was an unusual case, it had got emotions running… (The Oaths?) That’s all nonsense, people do things for money. It’s as simple as that, there are many reasons why people are involved in gang and criminal activities, but money is a significant factor in quite a range of criminal activities.”
Further perspective on this new turn in the case was added again by Detective Collins, who also happened to be the officer who actually received the call with our finger pointing triad all the way back in 1985:
“He wouldn’t have been overly popular for sure, he wouldn’t have won too many friends, but I guess with $550,000HKD he’d have had quite a different lifestyle to what he would have had without it.”
The mystery triad Lieutenant’s finger pointing session proved to be a most explicit and candid tell all. When asked how he knew who killed Kenneth and Nicola he went on to describe to detective Collins how Pang Shun Yee had appeared on his own one night in the illegal mahjong parlour that served as the triad’s base of operations. He was but a minion, an underling, a junior member of the triad, but despite his lowly position the informer remembered vividly when Pang Shun Yee came into the parlour one night looking akin to the cat that got the cream, with an ear to ear smile plastered across his face, a spritely spring to his step, and a mouth full of stories about a recent job of his…
The triad Lieutenant described to detective Collins how he sat to the side and listened as Pang Shun Yee spun the tale of his terrible exploits to their boss. Their boss, clearly furious at this announcement, kept a surface level facade of approval over his rage just long enough to encourage the surrendering of the full story so he knew exactly how big of a mess he had to clean up, and then when he had harvested all available information from him, the bosses cheerful lacquer disappeared, and he exploded in a fit of nuclear rage at Pang Shun Yee.
Words began to be flung at him from the boss, as he made it blatantly clear how monumentally stupid he had been: he had killed two teenagers, for what, $1 and a pair of trainers? Eventually the boss ran out of words to throw at him, but with his rage far from tempered, words became fists, fists became a chair, and eventually a chair became a knife…
At this point the tell-all triad claims he rose from his chair, and threw himself between Shun Yee and the boss, begging him to temper his rage before he made any rash decisions he might live to regret.
Detective Collins continued to sit for several hours as the story continued to unravel from there. He heard how Pang Shun Yee, petrified of retribution had thrown himself on his proverbial gladius and begged for forgiveness and atonement, but those further details mattered little to the ongoing investigation, finally they had a suspect. Now they just had to find him and bring him in.
All available resources were placed into tracking down the five boys fingered during the triad tell-all. Specifically targeted patrols began circling the districts often frequented by Pang Shun Yee — the locations of which were duly passed onto the police by their triad informant, and just for good measure his photograph was pulled from the Hong Kong Identity Card database, and copies were given to every single officer in the city on the off chance they should pass them.
It took several weeks, but eventually he was found. The honour of bringing Pang Shun Yee in fell to an anonymous Chinese beat officer, whose name has sadly been lost to history. But while we do not know the officer’s name, we do know what he did.
The officer was on patrol late one evening in Tin Hau, a small district nestled at the foot of Braemar Hill. The district was, and still is, absolutely stuffed with restaurants and shops, so even late at night the area was full shoulder to shoulder. The officer was of course aware that he was meant to be keeping an eye out for Pang Shun Yee, but with the vast cascade of people that filled the street passing faster than he could process them, the officer had largely placed that task at the back of his mind.
That was until when by pure chance, he went to maneuver himself towards a store front to move out of the way of on coming pedestrians, and when he turned his head leftwards, who should be staring him in eye, clearly terror riddled and petrified of being caught, but Pang Shun Yee. In a flash the officer’s right hand went to hover over his service revolver, as it always did when arresting a known triad, and his left hand clamped down on Shun Yee’s shoulder to restrain him. He had nowhere to run, and promptly found himself in the back of a police van, and thrown into a cell to await further questioning.
This may come as a surprise now, as throughout this story the triads have shown themselves to be honourable and loyal people but would it shock you know that Pang Shun Yee squealed like a piggy, and with only the gentlest of prods from the interviewing detectives, he immediately gave up four other names: Tam Sze Foon, Chiu Wai Man, Cheung Yau Hang, and Won Sam Lung.
All four were picked up promptly and joined Pang Shun Yee in the cells of Wan Chai Police Station.
After six long months of searching, the Royal Hong Kong Police were certain they had finally found their killers. Not only did all of their confessions match, as surprisingly all five of the boys surrendered matching stories without incident, but on the feet of Tam Sze Foon were a pair of white Nike trainers, of the exact same size and type that were missing from Kenneth’s remains. Detective Collins had the following comments regarding this twist in today’s story:
“Having interviewed the triad protector we managed to identify (Peng Shun Yee) over the course of several weeks. After we arrested the first … we knew there were five of them, and all five of them were picked by 11:30 of the following night. I think if we didn’t have such a large reward it would have gone on, I mean … I think we would have caught them but it would have gone on for a long long time.”
With all of our suspects now duly arrested, I can share with you a shocking detail that up until now I have been intentionally scant with: the age of the killers. Of the five monsters that had ended the lives of Kenneth McBride, aged 17, and Nicola Myers, aged 18, mere teenagers, barely even adults themselves; two were teenagers themselves: Pang Shun Yee, age 24, Tam Sze Foon, age 20, Chiu Wai Man, age 25, Cheung Yau Hang, age 17, and Won Sam Lung, age 16.
The age of Cheung Yau Hang and Won Sam Lung was every bit as shocking to the investigators back then as it is to us now, but it mattered little, the decision was made to charge, investigate, and prosecute them as adults.
With the manhunt now concluded, priority shifted to piecing together exactly what had happened, and getting the case ready for prosecution. Unfortunately, despite investigators knowing full well they had their killers, much of their evidence was far from watertight, none of the fingerprints were of sufficient quality to be submissible to a court, and as the primitive forensics of the day could do little more than prove the blood found at the scene was of the same type as that of the accused, the forensic angle was a no go. They needed a confession, and they needed it now.
This was a task that proved harder than one may first imagine, as previously mentioned all five suspects seemed incredibly forthcoming, but investigators were taking nothing for granted; it wouldn’t be the first time sweet tongue monsters had tried to charm their way to their freedom, and every precaution was taken to coax the truth out of the boys.
They were all separated and moved to different police stations to remove any chance they may cross paths and get the chance to corroborate their stories, and over the course of several months they were repeatedly interviewed over and over again. Investigators continually held a spotlight on them, poking and prodding at any slight deviations and differences that appeared in their stories, and eventually it was proposed that they sign a formal confession.
A proposal that shockingly, all five suspects immediately submitted to. Meaning that finally, seven long months after Kenneth and Nicola’s bodies had been found, the police knew exactly what had happened.
The Murders
So now comes the time where we discuss the grim details of today’s case. We are no stranger to suffering the very worst and depraved side of humanity here on the Casual Criminalist, but as ever, I, George, as a writer am always aware of the want to keep my scripts respectful to the victims we cover, and avoid my scripts becoming simple gore porn, furthermore, I am also aware that many in our audience care not for the gory details, and instead tune in for the thrill of case and to follow the police investigation. So with this in mind today I have opted to isolate the grisly details of the murder here, in its own specific chapter.
As ever in my videos I wish to keep the names and details of the killers to a minimum, and the names and details of the victims to a maximum. The killers are a foul pestilence in human form, worthy of no dignity, no quarter, and certainly not memorialisation, whereas the victims are worthy of all three of those things. It is exactly in support of that end that I have only just introduced their names; and consequently you have all heard Kenneth and Nicola’s names dozens of times before that of the killers was uttered even once.
The intentionally long winded introduction to this chapter has hopefully given everyone who does not want to hear the gory details the opportunity to skip ahead, and for all those who wish to and have missed my subtle cue, this is your last chance to skip ahead…
With that in mind, let’s keep this quick and respectful, then we can move onto the best bit of today’s story: where the bastards get what’s coming to them.
The day of the murders began like any other in the lives of small-time criminals. The boys, led by Pang Shun Yee were out and about trying car doors around the North Point area, hoping to grab some loose change, and maybe jack a boujie car stereo they could later sell. They reconvened for lunch, where they compared their takings, and found their efforts had come up short. Their takings barely covered lunch, and so, determined to make some good money by the time the day was done, Pang Shun Yee suggested they head up Braemar Hill and steal some of the copper wiring from the various electrical substations and power lines that ran through that quiet and docile area.
Pang led his four accomplices across the hills, but again to no avail. Every sub station they found was locked, and every bit of copper that they otherwise might have been able to grab, and thus go home satisfied, proved frustratingly just out of reach. Finding themselves empty handed, every single step taken simply fueled the group’s anger and rage even more, until eventually, Pang ordered them to give up on the idea of stealing altogether, just rob someone, and call it a day.
Pang actually lived closeby, in a small wooden hut perched among the remains of an otherwise long abandoned quarry, and thus knew the area well. He knew that although quiet, one of the pathways leading through the hills was reasonably popular with walkers, and that if they picked the right spot, they’d be able to ambush a passerby quickly, and get away even quicker.
He couldn’t believe his luck when he stumbled upon Kenneth and Nicola, as not only were they completely alone, but he reasoned that since they were Europeans they must be rich. He split his gang up into two, and ordered them to approach the pair in a pincer movement, blocking off any possible route they might have for escape.
They pounced and surrounded Kenneth and Nicola, demanding they turn out their pockets and hand over all their valuables. They had only a dollar, and nothing of value to hand over. For Pang and his gang, who had spent all day traipsing over a hot hillside in desperate search of money, who were tired, who were angry, this answer was not good enough. Of course they had money and they were going to give it over, NOW!
Kenneth and Nicola’s explanations to the contrary fell on deaf ears, they even physically turned out their pockets, and showed the gang the insides of their bags, but it was to no avail. Pang kept on insisting, and every time he was rebuked, his continued insisting became more and more aggressive and short tempered.
Kenneth stood his ground, as he did his best to shield Nicola from the increasingly hostile situation that surrounded the pair: shouting was met by shouting, pushing was met by pushing, and punching was met by punching. Alas, all attempts to resist were moot: Kenneth and Nicola were only a pair, one of whom had an arm bound in a sling; and it didn’t take long from the situation turning violent for them both to be on the floor and at the gang’s mercy.
With both Nicola and Kenneth on the ground, Pang’s immediate attention was on Kenneth, whom he perceived as the greater threat despite his broken arm. With Kenneth on the ground and clearly being no threat to the gang, the others proved reluctant to strike him further, and it was only under the threat of being next that they all relented and continued the merciless assault upon Kenneth. He was beaten with hand, with foot, and with stick until he stopped moving and went limp, at which point his arms and legs were bound, and he was asphyxiated until dead with a stick.
With Kenneth’s death, all attention turned to Nicola, who was subject to a most brutal attack that lasted for many hours. She was raped multiple times by Pang, as the others simply stood around, smoked cigarettes, kept a lookout, and made small talk. When Pang was finally finished, she was killed in much the same manner as Kenneth — no witnesses, Pang insisted. Speaking on the decision to kill Kenneth and Nicola, detective Collins noted:
“Their criminality had extended to just petty crime, a couple of them used to work as basically beggars, opening (car) doors at the pier and begging for money, so they weren’t career criminals at all, they were just young kids, two of them were very young. (Pang) was a member of the Fuk Ye Hing triad society and he was just a low level soldier or footman, he wasn’t known as a fighter … (the gang) had come from the top of the hill, from the mast where they originally tried to steal copper from … and then … they noticed the couple sitting there studying, and that’s when they made the decision to try and rob them … Pang did say that they rushed them, I think that was his exact words … and it just became a fight and they overpowered (Nicola and Kenneth). They had various tools, they picked up a piece of wood, similar to a pickaxe handle, or at least half of one, and they just overpowered them … (Pang) took control: ‘hold him down and stop him struggling, hit him, I have to hit him, you hit him, we all have to hit him’, he orchestrated what happened, the way the violence took place.”
Continued Investigation
During their police interrogation, all five of the suspects took part in reenactments of the crime back on Braemar Hill. Seemingly they all knew they were caught bang to rights, and were now acquiescing to every whim and request from investigators, in a desperate effort to get their inevitable prison sentences shortened. This form of criminal reenactment was a trailblazing procedure back in 1985, but one that despite some scepticism from the old guard of the criminology world was one that the Hong Kong judiciary was very keen to routinely implement, due to benefits that David Hodson describes:
“(It’s) an extension of the voluntary statement, so obviously participation in these case reconstructions must be voluntary, but it is very dramatic because it is oral, it is visual, and it can make a very big impression on people who watch it and it also can add great veracity to the statement if the guy can point things out, and you can see it happening.”
Finally, with all evidence gathered, the confessions extracted, and the crime recreated on video, the police were finally ready to send the suspects to court and formally begin criminal proceedings against them. The only job left was to submit the boys pleas, and somehow, shockingly, and neither I, George as the author of today’s piece, nor any other commentator whose work I have read during the completion of this piece am really quite sure why they did this — but they all pleaded not guilty on all charges despite their earlier confessions.
Despite all pleas to the contrary from the investigating detectives, all five of the boys remained tight-lipped and refused to budge on their plea, for a time anyway… Eventually in September 1986, with the court date looming ever nearer, one of the suspects finally buckled under the pressure, and desperate to do all he could to save his own skin, Won Sam Lung, the youngest of the accused, changed his mind, admitted his guilt, and began pointing all available fingers, and spewing all available dirt on his fellow accused.
Everyone else remained silent and upheld their claims of not guilt, but it mattered not at this point, the police had all the evidence and testimony needed to confidently push the case to trial, a trial which finally began in November 1986.
The Trial
As the blacked out prison van carrying Pang Shun Yee, Tam Sze Foon, Chiu Wai Man, Cheung Yau Hang, and Won Sam Lung pulled into the whitewashed walls of Hong Kong’s Supreme Court the media, and Hong Kong at large exploded with fervour and interest in the case. Reporters and their cameras pressed eagerly up against the perimeter fence of the building, completely surrounded by a shoulder to shoulder mass of citizenry that stretched as far as the eye could see. Legal expert Andrew Bruce commented on why this trial commanded such a fascination from the people of Hong Kong, even 19 months after the killing of Nicola and Kenneth:
“It was the kind of story that you expect even more coverage from the press (than that of a typical murder case) and it sure got it. There is something very special about every murder case, and in that sense this was no different to any other case, but it (did have) that element of the unexplained, and I guess in that sense it was unique.”
The crown prosecution presented over 150 exhibits, including 18 bundles of photographs, audio and video recordings of the accused, the murder weapons, and items of clothing recovered both from the victims and the accused.
Also called forth were 37 witnesses, including Won Sam Lung, who lest we forget, was the youngest member of the gang, who had pleaded his guilt and offered to testify against his former criminal comrades. For his honesty, Sam Lung was being kept separate from the rest of the gang, and was being held “at her majesty’s pleasure”, i.e. indefinitely, until they figured out what to do with him.
The accused were met by an all male jury, this being an old, and thankfully long abandoned tradition in British, and therefore colonial law in which cases deemed “too horrible” were viewed as being inappropriate for women to hear and subsequently were only heard by men.
The prosecution began with its opening statement, in which it painted a most horrific picture, one in which Kenneth and Nicola, two innocent bystanders, were killed and tortured, purely so that the flunked mugging which was attempted upon them would have no witnesses. The jury heard how a mugging became a killing frenzy, how Kenneth and Nicola suffered over 100, and 500 wounds respectively trying to defend themselves, and how Nicola had to suffer a horrific, hours long sexual attack at the hand of Pang Shun Yee, all the while the others stood around and did nothing, their only input to change proceedings being to choke Kenneth and Nicola to death.
A lynchpin piece of evidence was Kenneth’s Nike trainers. The prosecution explained to the court how these trainers, which had been seized from Tam Sze Foon, were clearly Kenneth’s, as attested to by store receipts provided by his parents, and several witnesses who confirmed that Sze Foon had boasted about taking them from Kenneth following the murders. Further context on why the trainers proved to be such a crucial piece of evidence can be found once again from Andrew Bruce:
“(Recovered evidence) takes it out of just the recitation of what the police saw, heard, and wrote down during their interviews… juries like to see something more than just a confession.”
The trial continued for 56 days, and on the 20th of January 1987, after an exhaustive presentation of evidence by the prosecution, the jury retired to deliberate. It took only 5 hours before a verdict was rendered: all guilty, on all charges.
Pang Shun Yee, Tam Sze Foon, and Chiu Wai Man all received the death penalty, but before we all get too excited about these monsters finally facing some real consequences for their actions, we must remember that as much as Hong Kong technically had the death penalty in 1987, in real terms, it did not.
The United Kingdom had abolished the death penalty in 1965, and a year later in 1966 what can only be described as a political shit storm ensued following the hanging of one Wong Kai Kei, the last person executed in Hong Kong. Following his death The Reform Club of Hong Kong, an old liberal advocacy group in the city, along with many of its powerful friends and benefactors (kind of) successfully lobbied for the city to follow the United Kingdom’s example, and abolish the death penalty, and so from 1966 the death penalty was suspended.
Suspension is not abolition however, and from 1966 to 1993 when the death penalty was formally abolished capital punishment existed in a state of bizarre limbo in Hong Kong, in which it was suspended, so no one was executed, but was still technically on the books until it was formally and legally removed in 1993. At the same time, many crimes, such as murder, still legally mandated death, so during this 30 year limbo period the city’s governor would simply commute the sentence of anyone convicted to death to life in prison.
So I’m afraid… that means exactly what you think it means for Pang Shun Yee, Tam Sze Foon, and Chiu Wai Man. As per this tradition, the trio’s death penalty was commuted to life imprisonment in 1993 by Chris Patten, the last colonial governor of Hong Kong.
As for Cheung Yau Hang, as he was under 18 when the murder was committed, he was ordered to be kept “at her majesty’s pleasure” i.e. indefinitely, as we discussed earlier. The youngest, Won Sam Lung, who had already pleaded guilty before the beginning of the trial, and was already being held “at her majesty’s pleasure” continued to be held under those conditions.
The killers were all whisked away to Stanley Maximum Security Prison on Hong Kong Island, where for the next decade they existed in a state of essential legal limbo. With all of them either being held “at her majesty’s pleasure” or being given life sentences, none of them were given set in stone dates for their release, and with the return of Hong Kong to Chinese rule being only 10 years away from their sentencing, and none of them having a hope in hell of being released before then anyway, no reviews or hearings were held before the 1997 Handover, with their futures, and possible releases being left to the incoming Chinese government to render judgement on.
For Cheung Yau Hang and Won Sam Lung, the young pair being held “at her majesty’s pleasure”, their case was on the desk of Tung Chee Hwa, the first Chief Executive of Hong Kong’s desk before the paint on his office’s walls had even dried, they were now being held under the authority of a monarch who had relinquished all sovereign rights to the territory in which they were held, and this legal web had to somehow be untangled.
Tung Chee Hwa rendered his judgement after consulting with the surviving family of Kenneth and Nicola, both of whom had forgiven Won and Tung specifically, and implored the new Chief Executive to show leniency in his new sentencing. He (kind of) did this, and decided that Won would be incarcerated for 27 years, and Cheung for a minimum of 30 years.
Won served out all of those years, and was released from prison in 2004; teary eyed and shaking, he gave a statement to the press following his release, claiming that receiving the forgiveness of Kenneth and Nicola’s families was both a huge weight off of his shoulders, and an even greater burden than his initial guilt, as he claimed to not feel deserving of the forgiveness. Nonetheless he committed to seizing the opportunity fully by reintegrating back into Hong Kong society and living a peaceful life. He later found work through the Criminal Rehabilitation Service as an administrative officer at a law firm, where he still works to this day.
Cheung Yau Hang’s release from prison would be less straightforward. A change in Hong Kong law from 2004 meant that serious criminals no longer received automatic release following their sentenced jail terms, and instead every single serious incarcerated criminal had to go before a parole board and prove their rehabilitation to earn their release. Cheung had his hearing on the 6th of April 2006, where he argued he was rehabilitated, and implored the court to give him a lesser sentence akin to Won’s.
His arguments were found lacking however, and rather than having his sentence lessened, his sentence was extended from 30 years in prison, to 35 years in prison, a sentence that given the heinous nature of his crimes, he was told he should be grateful for. This should have seen him released in January of this year, but fortunately (for him), appeals against this decision proved successful, and he was released in December 2007. He also found work through the Criminal Rehabilitation Scheme as an inspection worker for a public utility company, where he still works to this day.
As for Pang Shun Yee, Tam Sze Foon, and Chiu Wai Man, all of their limboed life sentences, which hadn’t had a potential parole date placed on them due to imminent Handover were upheld by Tung Chee Hwa, and they were given no date for possible parole: they were to remain behind bars indefinitely. Pang and Chiu remain behind bars to this day, and in my humble opinion: long may they remain there. Tam would get to leave prison in 2009, but not in the way he no doubt would have wanted, rather than being carried to freedom triumphantly in the back of a prison van, he was instead carried to Cape Collinson Crematorium in the back of a hearse, having passed away with cancer.
Public Response
Before we start with this chapter it is only right that in the spirit of transparency I point out that I, George, the author of today’s piece, am not Chinese. I am a European immigrant to Hong Kong; one of the rare Europeans that actually attempts to integrate into Chinese culture admittedly, as I speak both Mandarin and Cantonese, live in a local neighbourhood, and surround myself as much as possible by Chinese people and culture, rather than living in one of Hong Kong’s european expat enclaves and making no attempt to integrate as many Europeans in Hong Kong do, but the fact of the matter remains I am not Chinese, I never will be Chinese, and ultimately, for right or wrong, all of my reporting on, and discussions of racial relations in Hong Kong will come from this perspective.
I, George, am under no delusions regarding the fact I am not the best person to be discussing this particular issue, but the fact of the matter remains that racial issues are an inseparable part of this story, and omitting it would be nothing but intellectual dishonesty on my part. All attempts have been made to seek the opinions and thoughts of members of Hong Kong’s Chinese and minority communities for the completion of this chapter, but ultimately please remember that this comes from the perspective of a European immigrant to Hong Kong.
With that said, let’s dive into it:
The accusation, in a nutshell, is that the Royal Hong Kong Police specifically, and the Colonial government more widely committed significantly more resources and paid significantly greater heed to this case, purely due to the fact that the victims happened to be two white British nationals.
The Royal Hong Kong Police vehemently denied this accusation back in 1985, and continued to maintain that position up until the end of the British administration of the force following the 1997 Handover. The colonial police force maintained that it had a colour blind approach, and that the Braemar Hill Murders received the response that it did purely to the exceptional and unusual brutality of the crime.
It is notable that the only people who still publicly endorse this position nearly 40 years later, are European former police officers, and European former members of the Hong Kong judiciary. An example of this is Andrew Bruce, who in 1985 was serving as a prosecutor with the Hong Kong Department of Justice, in a television interview in the early 2010’s he commented the following:
“Every killing is awful, it must be a most horrendous thing, but there was something about this one, which was just such a total waste, a total lack of any explanation as to why it happened.”
One naturally wonders what that “something” was in this case. It certainly wasn’t the fact it was a double homicide, as although Hong Kong was, and remains a safe city, this was hardly the first instance of such a crime. For example in 1979 the remains of 24 year old Hung Siu Hong and 19 year old Yu Man Tung were discovered in Sham Shui Po, and was ruled as a double homicide by the Royal Hong Kong Police.
This case only had 4 officers assigned to it, was never solved, and never had even a single English language news piece written about it. Unless there is something glaring I, George, am missing, that leaves only one “something” different about the Braemar Hill case…
This opinion is shared by Stephen Vines, an independent journalist and commentator who certainly believes there was a racial bias in the police’s handling of this case, commenting the following:
“There was extreme levels of shock, and then the shock turned, because a lot of particularly the Chinese media started saying: ‘Oh, the only reason the police are so interested in this, is because they were two white kids, would the same level of attention be paid if these were two white kids’, and I think the truth is, probably (yes).”
Dave Hodson, former Assistant Commissioner of the Royal Hong Kong Police disagrees however, and believes that all accusations of racial bias by the Royal Hong Kong Police were simply the result of frenzy and fervour by the Chinese language media, stating:
“There was a large turn out of police in the early stages, and that caused the media and people to speculate: ‘why is this case being given so much priority’, and simply, you have to search a hill.”
An interesting point indeed from Dave, and in the spirit of fairness to his claim, we will now list all of the other homicide investigations that received as great a response from the Royal Hong Kong Police when the victim was Chinese or an ethnic minority:
(Pause for dramatic effect)
This opinion is not universal amongst European veterans of the Royal Hong Kong Police however, as one officer interviewed for the completion of this script, who asked to remain anonymous commented:
“At the end of the day in the Royal Hong Kong Police Force we did treat white expatriates better. I’m not saying it was right you understand, but it’s just the way things were back in the day. Expatriate districts got more bobbies on the beat and would basically always have their crimes handled quickest by CID … I left the force back in ‘84 so I wasn’t there for (the Braemar Hill Murders) but knowing the force like I did, as well as many of the lads involved in sorting that mess out, of course that case got more attention than most.”
The unfortunate facts of the matter is that Hong Kong between 1841-1997 was a colony, and accordingly the British, and other Europeans in the city received significantly better treatment than the native Chinese from the colonial government. They lived in bigger apartments, were paid significantly more than the average, their children near universally attended private schools far beyond the financial means of the average Hong Konger, and generally all lived privileged lives all but completely insulated from the day-to-day experiences of a native Chinese Hong Konger.
As previously stated however everything I, George might proclaim as a writer in this regard comes from the perspective of a European immigrant to Hong Kong, and as such, ultimately I do not feel it is my place to bring the gavel down in judgement in any regard on this matter. As such, I would like to close this discussion by quoting directly from a Chinese Hong Konger friend of mine, who has asked to remain anonymous, and who commented the following on the case:
“To commence with, it must be noted that a lot of assumptions are made in order to make a better inference regarding whether the colonial police back in 1985 during The Braemar Hill Murders Incident were prejudiced. This … is to highlight that the following analysis is solely an inference, not necessarily an accurate answer. This analysis focuses on the question: ‘Why did the British government (The Colonial Police Force) spend that much manpower on searching for the murderers on The Braemar Hill Murders Incident? Was it because of the victims’ nationality?’
The significance of the Braemar Hill Murders is that two local British youngsters were killed, leading to 800 policemen joining the investigation and 18,000 citizens being interviewed. An alleged anonymous businessman donated (an additional) $500,000HKD as a reward on successful finding of the murderers. It can be seen that the case caught the awareness of the colonial police force, and they spent a lot of effort to find the murderers.
As previously mentioned, it is suggested that the police force was spending that much effort due to the victims’ nationalities, which were British. To better analyse, here is a comparison.
In 1967, Lam Bun, a radio commentator, was killed when his car was torched. From the fact that the murderers have still not yet been found, it is believed that not much manpower was spent by the police in this case. One question is now raised, ‘If Lam were British, would the British government have spent more manpower to pursue the murderers?’
One may argue that, back in the day, the police force only had a limited number of policemen. However, the Police Tactical Unit was already established, and it was sufficient enough to suppress a riot in the 1960s. This showcases that the police force could have done more. Was it because of nationality?
Back to the Braemar Hill Murders: after receiving reliable sources from an anonymous triad member, the murderers were arrested within 48 hours. While in Lam’s case, there were similar tip-offs that never led to arrests. They were never investigated nor interviewed. Nor was it deemed important enough for the police to interview 18,000 people; It is clear that the manpower spent in these two cases was completely unequal.
Thus we have to ask: why was the process that was done with such efficiency in Braemar Hill Murders not done for Lam Bun? Was it because of the victim’s nationality? Now, one may also argue that the number of police had increased by the time of the Braemar Hill Murders, and that investigative technology was more developed. Furthermore, Hong Kong was gradually becoming a safer place as Chinese rule began to slowly get re-established over the city, but during Lam’s case, the colonial period, without any Chinese influence in governance it was chaos.
If all of this was true however, the Lam Bun case should have been investigated at a later date, instead of just being abandoned. If the murderers were able to be arrested.
So to answer the question: ‘Was the difference in police response due to the victims’ nationality?’ Yes, it probably was.”
As previously stated I, George, will not be giving my opinion on this matter as I do not feel it is appropriate, I will leave it to you all in the audience to form your own opinions. I would like to stress however that this discussion is not intended to belittle the plight and suffering of Kenneth and Nicola, but in all good conscience, I believe it would have been disingenuous of myself to write about this case, and pay heed to this tragically inseparable part of the narrative.
Conclusion
The families of both Nicola and Kenneth remained in Hong Kong for many years following their tragic deaths, however both families eventually made their way back to the United Kingdom when the parents of both families reached retirement age.
Their families’ return home would not be the end of their legacy in Hong Kong however, as in the pair’s memory, and in honour of the pair’s altruistic natures, their parents jointly set up the Kenneth McBride and Nicola Myers Memorial Fund was established in 1985, in order to help disadvantaged but gifted local Hong Kongers access further and higher education. The fund continues to exist to this day, and every year financially supports 1-200 disadvantaged students.
Of the thousands that have been helped by the fund over the years, highlights include a student who following the loss of his mother to cancer at an early age found himself determined to become a doctor, thanks to the fund he was able to attend Chinese University Hong Kong’s medical school, and today works as a doctor, and a girl who was orphaned at a young age, and thanks to the fund’s support is now studying in Taipei after hitting it out of the park in her studies at the Hong Kong University.
On the fund, Holy Trinity College Principal Mrs Jane Or commented:
“The fund provides a positive encouragement to our students in recognition of their strength and perseverance under adverse conditions. In practice, students have made use of the grant in sponsoring their own family expenses or buying additional study reference materials. The grant has extended to them a spirit of community support.”
It is a rare thing indeed when we get to finish on a happy note here on the Casual Criminalist, so let us end today’s show here, on this most rare, and refreshing silver lining to an otherwise dark and morbid cloud, and as we wrap things up, as ever I implore you all in the audience to give no heed to the monsters of today’s episode, those creatures foul enough to steal the lives of two young and innocent bystanders before they had even gotten started, they have gotten more than enough airtime over the years. Instead give your thoughts to Kenneth and Nicola, their families, and the thousands of disadvantaged students who have gone on to lead rich and fulfilling lives in their memory.
Dismembered Appendices
The dark chapters of history always prove the most interesting to behold, but as the emotional creatures we humans are, we run the risk of overstating the frequency of such horrific events, and possibly developing undue prejudices to the places in which they took place.
With this in mind, and absolutely not wanting to tarnish any of our dear audience’s perceptions of Hong Kong, I, George, as the author of today’s piece would like to take a moment to stress just how safe Hong Kong is. Statistically it is the sixth safest city on earth, with a violent crime rate which continues on a steady downwards trajectory, and homicides per year falling from just over 100 a year just after the handover in 1997, to 28 in 2016, and an all time low of just 17 in 2011. For comparison, London, a city with a similar population size had 107 homicides in 2016 and 117 in 2011, and New York, a city with a slightly larger population than Hong Kong had 628 homicides in 2016 and 515 homicides in 2011.
It is a city in which, as a resident, regardless of the district in which you reside, the notion of criminality simply doesn’t enter your day to day thoughts, a city in which my (George’s) local female friends find it odd that I ask them to message me when they get home safely, and a city in which I think nothing of a drunken 2.5 mile stagger home on New Year’s Day.
We have focused a lot on the criminality of Hong Kong this year here on the Casual Criminalist, but despite the depressing depths of incidents such as the Braemar Hill Murders in which we have focused today, or the absurd heights of Yip Kai Foon, as ever, we would like to stress that these are exceptional cases, and are not representative of the criminality of the city, certainly not in 1985, and much less today.
As ever, thanks are owed to the various peoples and organisations who made this script possible, but were not directly mentioned in the text:
Firstly I would like to thank the Hong Kong Police Force Data Access Department, for being exceptionally accommodating to my ever constant nagging and pestering for information.
Secondly I would like to thank the Hong Kong Police Old Comrades Association and The Royal Hong Kong Police Association. Who were able to put me in direct communications with officers involved in this case, or their surviving families.
Finally, I would like to thank the producers of “Crime Investigation Asia” for allowing me access to their raw interview footage.
Key Takeaways
- In 1985, teenagers Kenneth McBride and Nicola Myers were brutally murdered during a study walk on Hong Kong’s Braemar Hill by five young men.
- The investigation deployed 800 officers, interviewed 18,000 people, and used a HK$550,000 reward that led a triad lieutenant to inform on one perpetrator.
- Three killers received death sentences later commuted to life imprisonment; two younger offenders were released after 27 and 30+ years respectively.
- Many Hong Kong residents perceived the massive police response as racially biased, noting far fewer resources were devoted to similar crimes with Chinese victims.
- The victims’ families established a memorial fund in 1985 that continues supporting disadvantaged Hong Kong students’ education today.
Dana Ortiz covers prosecutorial mechanics, evidentiary procedure, and how investigations unwind decades after the original case file went cold.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who were the victims of the Braemar Hill Murders?
The victims were Kenneth McBride, a 17-year-old native of Scotland, and Nicola Myers, an 18-year-old. Both attended Island School, an exclusive private international school in Hong Kong. Kenneth was captain of the school rowing team, led the students’ union, and was involved in charity work. Nicola was a budding scholar who had developed fluency in Mandarin and Cantonese and hoped to work as a translator or interpreter.
When and where were Kenneth McBride and Nicola Myers last seen?
Kenneth McBride and Nicola Myers left the McBride family home in Braemar Hill Mansions at one o’clock on Saturday, April 20, 1985, to take a stroll through the forest near their home and find a place to study. They told their parents they would find a spot not too far from home rather than their usual deeper location in the forest, as Kenneth’s arm was bound in a sling from a recent rowing injury.
How were the bodies of Kenneth McBride and Nicola Myers discovered?
On Sunday, April 21, 1985, a bank manager and fellow resident of Braemar Hill Mansions discovered their bodies while on his morning run. He initially struggled to believe what he was seeing due to exhaustion from his ascent, but then fell to his knees in shock. The police were called immediately. The bodies were so difficult to remove from the hillside that a helicopter had to be arranged to transport them to the British Military Hospital, and then to Victoria Public Mortuary for post mortems.
What was the extent of the injuries sustained by the victims?
Kenneth McBride had bruises on his neck, his hands and feet were tied up, his shoes were missing, and he had over 100 defensive injuries indicating he put up significant resistance. Nicola Myers was found almost completely naked and had been raped. She suffered over 500 separate wounds and injuries in what Detective Trevor Collins described as an extremely violent attack, noting he had never come across a body with that many injuries despite years in homicide work.
How extensive was the police search and investigation?
The search involved almost 400 men combing the area, later expanded to up to 800 police officers and several hundred soldiers from the Royal Hong Kong Regiment, plus a dedicated helicopter. Eventually, approximately 18,000 people were interviewed, and about 180 people of interest were identified and questioned. The investigation also involved door-to-door questioning across multiple districts and the procurement of a new computer data entry system from England to handle the massive amount of information.
How were the killers eventually identified and arrested?
The breakthrough came when an anonymous Hong Kong businessman added $500,000 HKD to the existing $50,000 HKD reward, bringing the total to $550,000 HKD. This prompted a triad lieutenant to call in with information that Pang Shun Yee, a junior member of his triad, had confessed to the murders to his boss. After several weeks of targeted patrols, an anonymous Chinese beat officer spotted and arrested Pang Shun Yee in Tin Hau. Pang immediately gave up four other names: Tam Sze Foon, Chiu Wai Man, Cheung Yau Hang, and Won Sam Lung.
All five were arrested within about 24 hours.
Who were the five perpetrators and what were their ages at the time of the murders?
The five perpetrators were: Pang Shun Yee (age 24), Tam Sze Foon (age 20), Chiu Wai Man (age 25), Cheung Yau Hang (age 17), and Won Sam Lung (age 16). Despite two of them being teenagers themselves, all five were charged, investigated, and prosecuted as adults.
What was the motive for the murders?
The murders began as an attempted robbery. The gang, led by Pang Shun Yee, had spent the day trying car doors and attempting to steal copper wiring from electrical substations on Braemar Hill, but came up empty-handed. Frustrated and angry, Pang decided they would rob someone instead. They ambushed Kenneth and Nicola, but the victims only had about $1 and nothing of value. When Kenneth resisted and tried to shield Nicola, the situation escalated to violence. Pang insisted on killing both to eliminate witnesses.
What were the sentences given to the five killers?
Pang Shun Yee, Tam Sze Foon, and Chiu Wai Man received the death penalty, which was commuted to life imprisonment in 1993 by Governor Chris Patten since Hong Kong had suspended executions since 1966. Cheung Yau Hang (under 18) and Won Sam Lung (who pleaded guilty and testified against the others) were held ‘at her majesty’s pleasure’ indefinitely. After the 1997 Handover, Tung Chee Hwa sentenced Won Sam Lung to 27 years (released in 2004) and Cheung Yau Hang to a minimum of 30 years (released in December 2007 after successful appeals against an extended sentence).
Tam Sze Foon died of cancer in 2009. Pang Shun Yee and Chiu Wai Man remain in prison.
What memorial was established for Kenneth McBride and Nicola Myers?
In 1985, the parents of both families jointly established the Kenneth McBride and Nicola Myers Memorial Fund to help disadvantaged but gifted local Hong Kong students access further and higher education. The fund continues to exist and financially supports 1-200 disadvantaged students each year. Notable beneficiaries include a student who became a doctor after losing his mother to cancer, and an orphaned girl who went on to study in Taipei after excelling at Hong Kong University.
Sources
- Original Casual Criminalist video: Braemar Hill Murders: The Double Murder that Shocked Hong Kong
- Hero image source by IAEA Imagebank / openverse, by.
