Teen Told Police She Was Haunted by a Ghost — Then a Tortured Woman’s Skull Was Found in a Hello Kitty Doll By Christina Coulter

Content warning: The following article contains disturbing descriptions.

Fan Man-yee, a 23-year-old nightclub hostess in Hong Kong, was abducted, tortured and killed by three men in 1999 in a meth-fueled crime that became internationally infamous as the “Hello Kitty Murder,” after her skull was found sewn inside a Hello Kitty mermaid doll.

Her ordeal began with a debt: Fan owed around HK$20,000 — about $2,500 USD at the time — to Chan Man-lok, a local gangster and member of a triad, Hong Kong’s organized-crime syndicates, according to the South China Morning Post.

Chan, along with Leung Shing-cho and Leung Wai-lun, abducted Fan and took her to a third-floor apartment, decorated throughout with Hello Kitty merchandise, on in Kowloon, the northern part of Hong Kong. Prosecutors and experts later told the outlet that the men were high on methamphetamine for much of the month-long ordeal.

Over the next several weeks, Fan was beaten, starved, and restrained. A 13-year-old girl later known in court as Ah Fong testified that she witnessed — and at times took part in — the attacks, according to the South China Morning Post.

Ah Fong said Fan was burned with hot objects, struck with water pipes, and once tied to a rack with her hands crossed over her head for several hours.

The teenager, who had run away from home and become involved with Chan’s group, described to police a flat where methamphetamine use was constant and violence frequent.

Fan was assaulted “almost every day,” according to court records reported by the The Washington Post. As the abuse continued, her condition deteriorated. She eventually died from her injuries, though the exact cause of death could not be determined because of the condition of her remains — a fact that later affected the verdict.

In May 1999, Ah Fong went to a Tsim Sha Tsui police station and told officers she was haunted by the ghost of a woman who had died in the Granville Road flat, the South China Morning Post reported.

Police followed her to the apartment and found three bags containing Fan’s dismembered remains. Her skull had been sewn inside a Hello Kitty mermaid plush, the outlet reported, while other body parts were discarded with household trash and never recovered.

The case drew widespread attention in Hong Kong, a city known for its low homicide rate.

“Never in Hong Kong in recent years has a court heard of such cruelty, depravity, callousness, brutality, violence and viciousness. The public is entitled to protection from people such as you,” Justice Peter Nguyen, who presided over the trial, said per The Washington Post.

After a six-week trial, the jury convicted Chan, Leung, and Leung of manslaughter rather than murder, finding there was insufficient evidence to determine how Fan died, the outlet reported. All three men were sentenced to life in prison.

Ah Fong, who cooperated with police and testified in court, was granted immunity, according to both the South China Morning Post and The Washington Post.