Lam Kor-wan

Lam Kor-wan (; born 22May 1955) is one of Hong Kong's most notorious serial killers.

Early life Childhood Lam was born in British Hong Kong on 22 May 1955 as Lam Kwok-yue. From 1957 to 1962, his father worked for a petroleum company in Brunei, and Lam and his sister went to live with his mother in the company's dormitory, together with his father's concubine and his half-siblings. In December 1962, Lam returned to Hong Kong with his family, where they moved into their own home in Kwun Tong, and he attended a government elementary school, usually performing in the top ten of his class. In 1970, Lam's father opened a store selling motorcycles and asked him to help out in the shop after school every day, which led to a decline in Lam's grades and a deterioration in his relationship with his father, who often scolded him and drove him away from home. After graduating from secondary school, Lam started working in his father's motorcycle store on Hong Ning Road, Kwun Tong, and then worked as an air-conditioning apprentice for a relative.

Adulthood In early 1973, Lam was expelled from his home after an argument with his father. He was arrested after he threatened a woman with a knife and touched her lower body with his hand near a public toilet in Hok Yuen Street, Hung Hom. After 102 days of treatment in Castle Peak Hospital, he was discharged and temporarily renamed Lam Yau-keung. When Lam was about 19 years old, his family noticed that he was behaving abnormally and was interested in female flesh. He was later caught peeping at his sister's naked body outside the toilet of his residence in Kwun Tong. In 1978, Lam obtained a cab license and changed his name to Lam Kor-wan after he officially became a cab driver, and in about 1980, he became a night-time cab driver. In 1981, he suddenly became interested in photography, began to study photography techniques and joined a photography club. One year after Lam worked as a night-time cab driver, his mother noticed that his behaviour had changed significantly, such as his refusal to change clothes and take a shower, and his depressed behaviour.

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, even filming himself performing an act of necrophilia with his fourth victim. Lam shared his bedroom with his brother, who was unaware of his activities; Lam worked the night shift, so he was able to dismember victims at home during the daytime without his immediate family finding out. The brother was initially a suspect in the investigation, but police later determined that Lam acted alone.

Leung Sau-wan 29-year-old street cleaner Leung Sau-wan got off work outside in Nathan Road at 4 a.m. on 17 June 1982 and took a taxi driven by Lam. She was killed soon after at Argyle Street. Lam took the body home to take pictures and video of the dismemberment. The video was called "Operation Rainy Night". In order to facilitate "work", Lam put the camcorder on a bed and used the selfie function to take pictures of his actions. Since there was no need to manipulate the camcorder, Lam's dismemberment work was more careful than the last two times. He even cut the abdomen of Leung, picked out the intestines, and put them in his mouth to taste. Lam had the urge to taste human flesh but finally gave up because he felt sick. The limbs were abandoned on Tai Hang Road.

Leung Wai-sum After attending a thank-you party at the Sheraton Hotel in Salisbury Road on 2 July 1982, 17-year-old Saint Andrews School student Leung Wai-sum boarded a cab outside the hotel at 11:00 p.m. to return to her apartment in Valley Road Estate in Hung Hom. The family members called the students who went to the banquet and searched for her in Tsim Sha Tsui, but to no avail. The Saint Andrews School also notified the Leung family that she missed her HKCEE report card. The police reported the missing person's information to all police patrols and hospitals in Hong Kong, and issued a search notice and photos on August 5 to appeal to the public for information, but there were still no results. Lam claimed that he handcuffed Leung's hands and strangled her with an electric cord after talking to her in a cab about school, her future, her family, religion, and her soul, and then took the body home to rape and dismember it.

Arrest Lam was arrested by plainclothes officers on 17 August 1982. He had attempted to develop photographs of one of his dismembered victims at a Kodak shop. The manager of the Mong Kok shop 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 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, videotapes and several Tupperware containers containing women's sexual organs.

Trial On 8 April 1983, at the end of a long three-week trial with a seven-man jury, Lam was found guilty of four counts of murder and sentenced to death by hanging.

A fictionalised Lam was later portrayed by Lawrence Ng in the 1994 film The Underground Banker. It imagines Lam, now released from prison, as 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.

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.

In the Cantonese dub of South Park, the episode "Merry Christmas, Charlie Manson!" changes Charles Manson to a parodied version, called Lam Kor-fan (林過份).