Explainer | Hong Kong Hello Kitty Murder: meth paranoia or product of a violent decade and the films it spawned?

Twenty years after abhorrent killing that capped the violent 1990s, we look at whether the rash of gang crime that preceded it was a factor in the murder

From Big Spender to Broken Tooth to Yip Kai-foon, triads waged gang warfare, staged armed robberies and kidnapped billionaires for ransom in Hong Kong and Macau

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Hong Kong criminal Yip Kai-foon escaped from a hospital in 1989 while serving an 18-year prison term and was involved in a series of violent jewellery shop robberies with AK-47 assault rifles in Kwun Tong and Sham Shui Po in 1991 and 1992. Photo: SCMP

Published: 8:00pm, 27 May 2019Updated: 8:49pm, 27 May 2019

Hong Kong was plagued by a rash of gang violence in the 1990s. Criminals such as “Big Spender” and “Teeth Dog” were household names, their bold attacks and robberies regularly splashed across the front pages of local newspapers.

At the tail-end of the tumultuous decade came the most abhorrent crime of all – a brutal killing that quickly became known as the “Hello Kitty Murder”.

In May 1999, a severed head was found stuffed inside a Hello Kitty doll, and this month marks the 20th anniversary of that grisly discovery.

The victim was Fan Man-yee, a 23-year-old nightclub hostess, who was kidnapped by three triads, held in a flat in the crowded Tsim Sha Tsui area of Kowloon and tortured for more than a month before she died.

Fan Man-yee was kidnapped, tortured and her corpse was dismembered after her death.

The Hello Kitty mermaid doll in which Fan Man-yee’s skull was hidden. Photo: SCMP

Fan had allegedly stolen HK$4,000 from one of the men, Chan Man-lok, 36. The story goes that Chan hatched a plan to make her work as a prostitute until she’d repaid money, plus interest.