An unemployed 37-year-old man who said he believes he is the “son of God” was this afternoon found guilty of murdering a 15-year-old girl.
After about three hours of deliberations at the High Court, the jury — made up of five men and two women — unanimously ruled that Lau Cheung-fai murdered part-time model Kwok Wai-ming in 2014.
The defendant is expected to be sentenced to life in prison, however, the judge adjourned the case until Friday and asked the prosecution to submit more documents and evidence, including communications between Lau and Kwok, Commercial Radio reports.
The guilty verdict marks the end of a long trial in which the court heard that Kwok died of “mechanical asphyxia,” caused by a combination of plastic straps and adhesive tape around her neck and manual strangulation.
On Dec. 8, 2014, Kwok went to Lau’s apartment in Yau ma Tei, where he offered to pay her HK$500 (about US$64) for a private photo shoot. The pair had been communicating through a phone app, in which she referred to herself as “Siu B.”
After she refused to change into the clothes he had prepared for her, Lau struck Kwok on the head with a ketchup bottle, tied her limbs, neck and head with ties and adhesive tape, assaulted her private parts using a bottle of Chinese wine, and forced the remaining alcohol down her throat.
Lau put Kwok’s body in a suitcase, took her to the Harbour Hotel in Mong Kok, and had sex with her body twice.
He then left the suitcase in the hotel room, went home, and returned the next day to dispose of the body.
Kwok’s body was found a day later at a garbage collection point, and Lau was arrested later that day.
In January, a psychiatrist told the court that the defendant was not mentally fit to stand trial after the defendant claimed, among other things, that he was the son of God who was chosen for a holy war, could time travel by reading the Bible, and could defeat devils by drinking urine and eating feces.
The jury eventually ruled that Lau’s acute psychosis — which, in a slightly convenient twist, began at the end of last year — had not substantially affected his mind, and he was therefore fit to testify in court.
In his testimony, Lau denied murdering Kwok, and the court rejected his guilty plea for manslaughter.
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