Engineer guilty of murdering girlfriend on bus

An engineer who stabbed and killed his girlfriend on a bus three years ago was unanimously found guilty of murder by a jury yesterday.

Ng Yan-kin, 25, stabbed his girlfriend Annie Li Sin-heng, 20, more than 30 times before breaking a window on the double-decker bus and jumping out on September 16, 2017.

After 36 days of hearings, the jury, consisting of five women and two men, returned the guilty verdict after more than six hours of deliberation.

Ng previously intended to plead guilty to a lesser count of manslaughter, but this was rejected by the prosecution.

High Court Justice Audrey Campbell-Moffat yesterday said although the only sentence for murder is life imprisonment, she will still allow the defense counsel time for mitigation.

The case is adjourned to a date after January 14 next year for sentencing, but the date has not been confirmed.

The court was told earlier that Ng stabbed Li with a knife 33 times on the upper deck of bus 118 when the bus reached the Chai Wan bus depot near Fu Shing Court on Chai Wan Road.

Before the murder, Ng had tried to stop Li from participating in a university orientation camp and threatened to post their sex tapes online when Li asked to break up.

Ng also stabbed himself several times before breaking a window and jumping out of the bus.

A male friend of Ng, Tsang Chiu-ming, had previously testified in court, saying he met Ng during university.

He said Ng sent a text message on the day of the murder to ask him out to dinner, but when he replied, it was an hour after the murder.

Tsang said he believed that the text was a signal from Ng seeking help and he regretted not replying in time.

He found the prosecution's claim that Ng and Li were arguing about a break-up at the time of the murder strange, but agreed Ng was a very controlling person.

"[He] always wanted to know what happened to his girlfriend, and [Li] always had to report to him," Tsang said.

However, Tsang did not know that Ng installed a tracking system on Li's mobile phone, but said he had advised Ng to pay attention to his controlling behavior.

staff.reporter@singtaonewscorp.com