Photos: Son found guilty of killing parents and cooking their body parts in microwave

A Hong Kong man has been found guilty of murdering his parents before chopping their bodies and cooking them in a microwave. Henry Chau Hoi-leung, 31, was found guilty by an 8-1 majority but his co-defendant Tse Chun-kei, 38, was found not guilty.

The court was previously told the couple lived decent lives with their two sons in Sai Ying Pun. They did not have any enemies and were not in debt. They had followed their younger son Henry Chau to see his new home in Tai Kok Tsui that morning before they disappeared.

After a few days, the couple’s elder son Chau Hoi-ying felt strange at losing contact with his parents. But Henry Chau told his brother to wait as he heard their parents went to mainland China on a trip.

Around March 7, the elder brother decided he could not wait any longer for news of his parents. The following week, Henry Chau accompanied his brother to report their disappearance to police.

While giving a statement to police about his missing parents on March 14, Henry Chau sent Whatsapp messages inside the police station to a group of friends saying he had killed them.
The South China Morning Post reports that,later that night, he met his cousin and a good friend at a restaurant in Tsim Sha Tsui and confessed all the details of their killing and dismemberment.

 The following morning, police received a report from a member of the Whatsapp group that Henry Chau had killed the couple. They arrested Henry Chau at his home in Western district. Around the same time, another team of police went to Tse’s flat and arrested Tse.

When the police conducted a search of Tse’s flat, they found the couple’s heads stored in two refrigerators and their chopped flesh and organs kept in lunch boxes. Three plastic boxes containing their salted body parts were found in another room. Some of the body parts were believed to have been cooked or microwaved.

A pathologist found the body parts fitted almost two complete sets of human skeletons matching the couple. He believed the couple were stabbed either in their chests or throats, causing their death. They were cut into pieces after they were killed.

The fridges were his dead parents were found

They followed the list to purchase the items on alternative days in January, 2013.

On February 25, Henry Chau asked his parents to visit his new home on March 1 that year, while Tse resigned from his job as a security guard on the same day.

Five days before the killing, the pair bought more knives, including the one that was used to kill Henry Chau’s father.

Henry Chau claimed it was Tse who dismembered the bodies. He only came to assist Tse when Tse claimed he could no longer do it alone. He claimed they dumped two bags of human remains into the sea on March 12.

But Tse insisted he did not take part in the killing. He came to know the couple were killed when Henry Chau showed him a box of chopped body parts on March 4.

Tse claimed he was compelled to join Henry Chau in disposing of the body parts as the murder took place in his home and the bodies were still there. He was also afraid that Henry Chau would do harm to his mother if he did not follow his instructions.


Judge Mr Justice Michael Stuart-Moore said Henry Chau was an extremely dangerous man. He blamed everyone in the world for his troubles except himself and was a complete failure in life, he said.

The judge believed Tse had been used and bullied by others all of his life.