Hong Kong socialite and fashion model Abby Choi, mother to four, seemed to have the picture perfect life—the style icon often attended Paris Fashion Week and was featured in magazines such as Elle and Harper’s Bazaar. Born to a wealthy family who ran a prominent construction business in mainland China, Abby Choi Tin-fung was a self-proclaimed fashionista well-liked by couture brands. Just a few months ago, Abby graced the cover of L’Officiel Monaco, a luxury fashion and lifestyle magazine, and she posted about the achievement with gratitude on her Instagram with over 100,000 followers.

Yet on Tuesday, February 21, 2023, Abby Choi was reported missing. And only a few days later, a few of her body parts were recovered in an apartment in Lung Mei Tsuen, a suburban village on the east coast of Hong Kong.

The gruesome details of her murder shook Hong Kong—often listed as one of the safest metropolises in the world with a remarkably low level of violent crime—and began an inquiry into what led to her traumatizing death. Abby Choi’s first marriage in 2012 to Alex Kwong ended in divorce in 2016. The socialite went on to pursue a relationship with Tam Chuk Kwan, whose father had founded TamJai Yunnan Mixian, a well-known casual restaurant chain. However, despite divorcing Kwong, Abby was apparently still financially taking care of her ex-husband and his family. She reportedly maintained good relations with Kwong’s relatives, even as far as referring to Anthony Kwong, Alex’s brother, as her own brother. Anthony Kwong served as her personal driver, and the two opened a pancake stall together.

Yet Abby’s relationship with her ex-husband’s family began to turn sour after she began making plans to sell the luxury apartment she bought for the Kwong family and her two children with Alex Kwong. Although Abby paid for it, it was registered under her ex-husband’s father’s name, who allegedly arranged the mortgage agreement as such to avoid paying nearly $8 million Hong Kong dollars ($1 million US dollars) in stamp duty. Alex Kwong’s father, Kau Kwong, vehemently opposed her decision to sell the apartment.

Abby’s financial rearrangements greatly angered her ex-husband and his family, who decided at that point to begin plotting her murder. Police reported that the scheme was premeditated, with Kau Kwong renting out an apartment to dismember Abby’s body. When police discovered the apartment, they noted that it was essentially a butcher’s shop, equipped with an electric saw, meat grinder, hammer, and choppers. The apartment was covered in plastic material, and the Kwongs wore face shields and black protective outerwear to prevent blood from splattering on them. In the refrigerator of the apartment were two dismembered legs and pots of soup containing human remains.

Alex Kwong’s parents and brother were swiftly detained, but initially, police were unable to locate Alex. Later on, they caught him trying to escape on February 25 via speedboat.

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JONBENÉT RAMSEY

In the early morning hours of December 26, 1996, John and Patsy Ramsey awoke to find their six-year-old daughter JonBenét Ramsey missing from her bed at their home in Boulder, Colorado. Patsy and John had woken up early to prepare for a trip, when Patsy discovered a ransom note on the stairs demanding $118,000 for their daughter’s safe return.

Despite the note’s warning not to involve police, Patsy immediately called them, as well as friends and family in order to aid in the search for JonBenét Ramsey. Police arrived at 5:55 AM and found no signs of forced entry, but did not search the basement, where her body would eventually be found.

Before JonBenét’s body was even found, there were many investigative mistakes made. Only JonBenét’s room was cornered off, so friends and family roamed the rest of the house, picking up things and potentially destroying evidence. The Boulder Police Department also shared evidence they found with the Ramseys and delayed conducting their informal interviews with the parents. At 1:00 PM the detectives instructed Mr. Ramsey and a family friend to go around the house to see if anything was amiss. The first place they looked was the basement, where they found JonBenét’s body. John Ramsey immediately picked up his daughter’s body and brought her upstairs, which unfortunately destroyed potential evidence by disturbing the crime scene.

During the autopsy it was discovered that JonBenét Ramsey had died from asphyxiation due to strangulation, in addition to a skull fracture. Her mouth had been covered in duct tape and her wrists and neck were wrapped with a white cord. Her torso had been covered in a white blanket. There was no conclusive evidence of rape as no semen was found on the body and her vagina appeared to have been wiped clean, although a sexual assault had occurred. The makeshift garret was made using a length of cord and part of a paintbrush from the basement. The coroner also found what was believed to be pineapple in JonBenét’s stomach. Her parents do not remember giving her any the night before she died, but there was a bowl of pineapple in the kitchen which had her nine-year-old brother Burke’s fingerprints on it, however this meant little since time cannot be attributed to fingerprints. The Ramseys maintained Burke was in his room all night asleep, and there was never any physical evidence to reflect otherwise.

There are two popular theories in the Ramsey case; the family theory and the intruder theory. The initial investigation focused heavily on the Ramsey family for many reasons. The police felt that the ransom note was staged as it was unusually long, written using a pen and paper from the Ramsey’s house, and demanded almost the exact amount of money that John had received as a bonus earlier that year. Additionally, the Ramseys were reluctant to cooperate with police, though they later said this was because they feared the police would not conduct a full investigation and target at them as easy suspects. However all three members of the immediate family were questioned by investigators and submitting handwriting samples to compare to the ransom letter. Both John and Burke were cleared of any suspicion of writing the note. Although much was made that Patsy could not be conclusively cleared by her handwriting sample, this analysis was not further supported by any other evidence.

Despite a larger pool of suspects, the media immediately focused on JonBenét’s parents, and they spent years under the harsh limelight of the public eye. In 1999, a Colorado grand jury voted to indict the Ramseys on child endangerment and obstruction of a murder investigation, however the prosecutor felt that the evidence did not meet the beyond a reasonable doubt standard and declined to prosecute. JonBenét’s parents were never officially named as suspects in the murder.

Alternatively, the intruder theory had lots of physical evidence to support it. There was a boot print found next to JonBenét’s body which did not belong to anyone in the family. There was also a broken window in the basement which was believed to be the most likely point of entry for an intruder. Additionally, there was DNA from drops of blood from an unknown male found on her underwear. The floors in the Ramsey’s home were heavily carpeted, making it plausible for an intruder to have carried JonBenét downstairs without waking the family.

One of the most famous suspects was John Karr. He was arrested in 2006 when he confessed to killing JonBenét by accident, after he had drugged and sexually assaulted her. Karr was eventually dismissed as a suspect after it was revealed that no drugs had been found in JonBenét’s system, police could not confirm he was in Boulder at the time, and his DNA did not match the profile generated from the samples found.

Much of the recent investigation in the case revolves around the DNA profiles developed from the sample found in her underwear and the touch DNA later developed from her long johns. The profile from her underwear was entered into CODIS (the national DNA database) in 2003, but no matches have been identified.

In 2006, Boulder District Attorney Mary Lacy took over the case. She agreed with the federal prosecutor that the intruder theory was more plausible than the Ramseys killing their daughter. Under Lacy’s lead, investigators developed a DNA profile from touch DNA (DNA left behind by skin cells) on her long johns. In 2008 Lacy released a statement detailing the DNA evidence and fully exonerating the Ramsey family, saying in part:

“The Boulder District Attorney’s Office does not consider any member of the Ramsey family, including John, Patsy, or Burke Ramsey, as suspects in this case. We make this announcement now because we have recently obtained this new scientific evidence that adds significantly to the exculpatory value of the previous scientific evidence. We do so with full appreciation for the other evidence in this case.

Local, national, and even international publicity has focused on the murder of JonBenet Ramsey. Many members of the public came to believe that one or more of the Ramseys, including her mother or her father or even her brother, were responsible for this brutal homicide. Those suspicions were not based on evidence that had been tested in court; rather, they were based on evidence reported by the media.”

In 2010 the case was officially reopened with renewed focus on the DNA samples. Further testing has been conducted on the samples and experts now believe that the sample is actually from two individuals rather than one. In 2016 it was announced that the DNA would be sent to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation to be tested using more modern methods and authorities hope to develop an even stronger DNA profile of the killer.

In 2016, CBS aired The Case of JonBenét Ramsey which implied her then nine-year-old brother Burke was the killer despite the fact he was cleared by the DNA evidence that proved the existence of an intruder. Burke filed a $750 million-dollar lawsuit against CBS for defamation. The case was settled in 2019, and while the terms of the settlement were not disclosed, his lawyer stated the case was “amicably resolved to the satisfaction of all parties.”

The JonBenét Ramsey case is still open and remains unsolved.

Ted Bundy was born on November 24, 1946 in Burlington, Vermont and grew up to be a charming, articulate, and intelligent young man. However, by the time he was a teenager living in Washington, Bundy already exhibited signs of the sadistic serial killer he would become.

In interviews he recalled being antisocial and wandering the streets looking for discarded pornography or open windows through which he could spy on unsuspecting women; he also had an extensive juvenile record for theft that was dismissed when he turned 18. By 1972 he had graduated college and showed great promise in a career in law or politics. That career would be cut short though when he discovered his true passion, viciously assaulting his earliest confirmed victim in 1974.

He tended to prey on young and attractive college women, first near his home in Washington, then moving east to Utah, Colorado, and finally in Florida. Bundy would prey on these women with a ruse, often wearing his arm in a sling or his leg in a fake cast and walking on crutches. He would then use his charm and faked disability to convince his victims to help him carry books or unload objects from his car. He was also known to impersonate authority figures, such as police officers and firefighters, to gain victims’ trust before he attacked. Once they got to his 1968 tan Volkswagen Beetle, he would strike them over the head with a crowbar or pipe. After hitting his victims, he would immobilize them with handcuffs and force them into the vehicle. Bundy had removed the passenger seat and often stored it in the backseat or trunk, leaving an empty space on the floor for his victim to lie out of sight as he drove away.

Bundy was able to rape and murder scores of women this way. He typically strangled or bludgeoned his victims as well as mutilating them after death. He then prolonged the events by returning to visit the corpses at their dump sites or even taking them home in order to gain further sexual gratification. In some cases, he even shockingly displayed their decapitated heads in his apartment and slept with their corpses until putrefaction made it unbearable.

As body counts rose and witness descriptions spread, several people contacted authorities to report Bundy as a potentially matching suspect. However, police consistently ruled him out based on his seemingly upstanding character and clean-cut appearance. He was able to avoid detection even longer by learning how to leave virtually no evidence that could be traced by the still rudimentary forensics techniques of the 1970s. Bundy was finally arrested for the first time on August 16, 1975, in Utah after fleeing from a patrol car. A search of the vehicle yielded masks, handcuffs, rope, and other nefarious items, but nothing definitively linking him to the crimes. He was released but remained under constant surveillance, until he was arrested again for the kidnapping and assault of one of his victims several months later. Bundy escaped custody a year later after being transferred from Utah to Colorado for another trial but was recaptured within a week. He then managed to escape a second time on December 30, 1977, at which point he was able to reach Florida and resume his killing spree. He raped or murdered at least six more victims, five of them Florida State University students, before he was apprehended again for a traffic violation on February 15, 1978. He was finally sentenced to death and died in the electric chair on January 24, 1989. At the time of his execution, Bundy had confessed to 30 murders, though the actual number of his victims remains unknown.

Ted Bundy’s Volkswagen is on display at the Alcatraz East Crime Museum in Tennessee.