Lam Kor-wan

Lam Kor-wan
Born 林過雲
(1955-05-22) May 22, 1955
Hong Kong
Other names The Jars Murderer
The Rainy Night Butcher
The Rainy Night Killer
The Hong Kong Butcher
Criminal penalty Death by Hanging (Commuted to Life Imprisonment)
Killings
Victims 4
Date apprehended
 17 August 1982

Lam Kor-wan (born June 22, 1955) is one of Hong Kong's two known serial killers. The other was Lam Kwok-wai.

Crimes

Lam, who worked as a taxi driver, would pick up female passengers, strangle them with electrical wire, take them to his family home, and dismember them. His English moniker, "The Jars Murderer", was coined when the police revealed that he had hoarded sexual organs in tupperware containers. He was a keen photographer and frequently took pictures and video of his victims, filming himself performing an act of necrophilia with his fourth victim. The Chinese press nicknamed him "The Rainy Night butcher" (Traditional Chinese 雨夜屠夫) because several of his attacks occurred during inclement weather.

Lam shared his bedroom with his brother, who was unaware of his activities; Lam worked the nightshift, so was able to dismember victims at home during the daytime without his immediate family finding out. The bodies were disposed of via his taxi in the New Territories and on Hong Kong Island, and all were eventually located.

Arrest

Lam was arrested by plain clothes officers on 17 August 1982. He had attempted to develop photographs of one of his dismembered victims at a Hong Kong Kodak shop. The shop manager in Mong Kok tipped off the police and they were waiting for him when he returned to pick up the photos. When confronted Lam claimed that the photographs belonged to a friend of his who worked on a ship who would meet him shortly; when the man did not appear the police accompanied Lam to his parents' first floor apartment on Kwei Chau Street [1] and performed a search. The police located an old ammunition box in the bedroom he shared with his brother; the box contained pornography and more photographs of body parts, video tapes and several tupperware containers containing women's sexual organs.

Trial

On 8 April 1983 at the end of a 21-day trial with a seven-member all male jury, Lam was found guilty of four counts of murder and sentenced to death by hanging. On 29 August 1984 Lam's sentence was commuted to life imprisonment, as was the tradition before the abolition of the death penalty in 1993. He is currently serving his life sentence at the maximum security facility at Shek Pik.

Victims

Moreover, according to the interview of a former journalist, aka "OCTB sir Wong" in the episode 2014-7-21 of online radio program "Mystery HK" (無奇不有), police at that moment found that 15 female bodies were taken into Lam's photos. However, they could identify only 4, which were the 4 victims known in this case.[2]

The victims in this case were identified by two lecturers from the Prince Philip Dental Hospital, part of the University of Hong Kong who created and perfected a new system of photo-superimposition. This involved taking a anti-mortem photograph of the possible victim with a radio-graph (x-ray) of post-mortem skull of the possible victim and superimposing the photo on the skull and matching similarities just as is done with finger-prints.

Popular culture

Lam Kor-wan is portrayed by Hong Kong actor Simon Yam in the movie Dr. Lamb (1992).[3]

Lam was later portrayed by Lawrence Ng in a more fictional light in the 1994 film The Underground Banker in which Lam, now released from prison is a reformed Buddhist who is friendly and helpful to his neighbour and only returns to his psychotic killing state to help his neighbour take revenge on Triads who raped, murdered or maimed most of his family.[4][5]

The 1999 film Trust me U Die is sometimes known by the alternate title The New Dr. Lamb, but has no connection to Lam Kor-Wan or the previous film except that both star Simon Yam.[6]

References

Footnotes

  1. ↑ "Kwei Chow St, Kowloon, Hong Kong - Google Maps". Maps.google.com. 1970-01-01. Retrieved 2010-10-20.
  2. ↑ The Rainy Night killer: Lam Kor-Wan (in Cantonese language)
  3. ↑ Gou yeung yi sang (1992)
  4. ↑ "Underground Banker". Hkfilm.net. Retrieved 2010-10-20.
  5. ↑ "The Underground Banker (1993)". Lovehkfilm.com. Retrieved 2010-10-20.
  6. ↑ "Trust Me U Die". Hkfilm.net. Retrieved 2010-10-20.
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