We read it the newspapers. We hear it on the news. We see it in the bookstores. There are countless programmes on countless networks. Those all about serial killers,murder,dark obsessions and other things that go bump in the night. We tend to forget despite all the media attention that is normally focused on the US that there are places in the world that have similar obsessions. We not the only ones with this obsessions as I have learned thus far.  It seems to me compared to Asian television,books and other media outlets we are no where near how bad it could be every time a new,dark,evil person appears on the scene either.

Out of all the places in Asia I have researched about in this quest for Murder Most Foul Japan seems to be leading the charge in the amount of media that is published about the latest crimes and victims. It comes in the form of comics,interviews,TV shows and perhaps most disturbing of all is a cannibal with a food column in Tokyo. Just what I have always is food tips from someone that had romantic notions with the entree that happened to be their date for the night. Disturbing to say the least. Everywhere you go there is something to capture the imagination about this subject,Japan is no exception to this rule.

While the subject that I have chosen has evolved and it has devolved as well in the fact that it is too easy to stay focused only on the crimes and not the pop culture aspect which is easy to overlook given the subject matter. Where does one go from here then? To delve further into the pop culture pheom that is murder in general and to discover why it is so popular if not often discussed in the polite society that is Asia. Why the Asia people contiune have their own slight obsessions with murder most foul.

When we think of Hong Kong the first thing that pops  into our minds is not usually someone offing someone in particular gruesome  manner. More to the point Hong Kong brings to mind the beautiful waters of Victoria Harbour,the fireworks of New Year’s Eve,exotic travel of the Far East and more often than  not a James Bond movie or two. Murder,serial murder in particular,is rare in the tiny city island that is Hong Kong and in fact in the history of the area that has been only two known serial killers recorded. Which for the people that live there is probably a good thing,however, like Japan comics,television shows,lectures,magazine articles to name a few have published on a near cult status albeit some of them in the underground.

We have our setting in the exotic locale of Hong Kong a former British colony. So let’s meet our freak of the week,Hong Kong style. In this corner introducing Lam Kor-wan the infamous “Jars Murderer” of Hong Kong.

The Crimes: Lam  was a taxi driver in the city which gave him ample chances to find his victims that would remain unnoticed as missing until much later simply because they got into a taxi. A normal event in any city to be sure unless you happened to have gotten into the wrong cab and for 4 women that is exactly what happened.  Lam would pick up the women in the usual locations,get them to the family home,sexually assault them,strangle them with electrical wire , and placed the female organs in Tupperware containers in the fridge,hence the moniker of the “Jar Murderer”. And if that doesn’t do for you friends and neighbours there is more. There is always more. He is was a very keen photographer and you guessed it;he took hundreds of photos and video of his crimes up to and including necrophilia. While cannibalism has the decided squick factor it is however slightly more acceptable than necrophilia,by a long shot. Add videos into the mix that he filmed of his last victim;eye bleach,stat!

The more interesting aspect the case is the fact that he shared housing with a family member who completely unaware of what was going up until the time of his arrest. You have got to wonder how in the hell said person did not noticed the containers in the fridge filled something other than leftovers from dinner. Not to mention the blood and most assuredly the smell. Try to wrap your head around that for a minute or several. Your family member is completely clueless to the unhinged mind in the kitchen.  Leftovers anyone? Didn’t think so.

The Arrest: Surprisingly Lam decided that he would go to the local Kodak shop in Hong Kong and for reasons know only to him he decided that this would be just a dandy place to develop his “art”. The store manager thought things were a little hinky,called the local cops who in turn showed up when he did to pick up his photos. Lam tried to play it off as someone else’s work with no such luck. The cops excuted a search warrant finding whole lot of grisly things including some Tupperware containers. He was convicted of 4 counts of murder most foul, sentenced to die and later had the sentence commuted to life in prison where he remains today. And this would have been the last that we heard of him except for a few factors in which he achieved cult status.

Lam is one of two known serial killers ever to grace the island that is known as Hong Kong remarkable considering how many call Hong Kong home. The first of what become several movies of varying degrees of good would elevate his status to the dark inner recesses of our minds of freakiness. The first of which is a low budget flick called Dr. Lamb that was shot on location,loosely based on the crimes and the pursuit of the evil dude. It came out in 1992 a full 10 years post-conviction while never having a full release anywhere in the world except Hong Kong it became one those films no one ever admits to seeing,but, we know you have.

A couple of years later and seemingly the folks can’t get enough of the bad stuff another in film loosely based his crimes pops up again called the The Underground Banker in which he is released from prison,becomes a monk and reforms his evil ways. What makes this one a stand out of the films that he is featured in, is that he returns to a life crime only after his family is brutally murdered. I just bet you can guess how they murdered too. Again, with limited release it was one of those films that was very popular in Hong Kong because of the subject and subject matter. The buying public at the movies has interesting if a bit strange taste in what they consider good or is it perhaps the ye olde train wreck again?

Finally, 28 years later another film is made and this time it is a documentary based on the actual case evidence,people that were involved, case inspectors;the whole smear. It brought Lam to the forefront of the media again because unlike prior movies it was based solely on the facts of the case. The pubic again ate it up despite a nearly 30 year gap since the last movie that anything to do with him however remotely.

My take on why this particular person has  cult status in the small place that is Hong Kong is while there are the Tongs, Yakuza etal there is had not been up until his arrest a serial killer of any kind ever recorded in the annuals of crime. He was the first. If you going to be first at least do it right which he did complete with some things are again decidedly icky with film to just add to it. Perhaps it is ,also, the well known aspect of the Chinese culture having a great deal of respect for life,family and culture that makes the people wonder where in the world that they went wrong that they could not see Lam slowly,but, surely going off the deep end with no help in sight. Perhaps it is a more mundane reason of that pesky thing again that is the train wreck of the human condition where we must look at the darkness. We must see the wreck. We become consumed by the violence of the murders to the point that movies are made. Because as we well know movies aren’t going to made unless someone is going to watch them.  Furthermore, a recurring theme that crops up is exactly that,movies. For the most part in a part of the world that is not known for crimes of this nature there certainly tends to be a lot of movies be made about the crimes. Why is that?

Because we are watching the train wreck hoping against hope that we are not going to be it.

Further reading for your freak of the week:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lam_Kor-wan

http://www.miditech.tv/content.aspx?page=The+Jars+Murderer

http://murderpedia.org/male.K/k/kwok-wai-lam.htm

How does a convicted killer go from being declared legally insane in the membrane to becoming  a published comic book writer amongst other things in Japan? Easy.  Really helps too if you happened to have been a cannibal who because of some rather interesting legal issues checked himself out of the padded room in 1986 and has been a free man since. In the decades since he has become something of a minor celebrity in Tokyo,Japan so without further adieu let’s meet your freak of the week,Issei Sagawa.

The Crime: In 1981, while attending Sorbonne in Paris,France; he invited a classmate over on the pretext of discussing French literature instead he shot her with the intent of having lunch. She was to be the entree. While, the rest of the crime needless to say is too gory to discuss he was caught when attempting to dispose of the evidence in a lake simply because someone saw him.

The Celebrity: Because of a number of issues when he was returned back to Japan with the French paperwork there was no way to hold him legally in custody other than the metal hospital which he checked out of in 1986. He became a speaker on the lecture circuit strangely enough and even stranger than that is the fact he is a contributor to a food magazine of all things. In addition he has written books about what he has done, had a comic book issues, appeared in films of a decidedly sadist nature and as recently as 2009 he was documented on the History Channel. He is considered evil,violent, more than sightly crazy,but, people eat up what he has to offer hence the nickname ” The Cannibal Celebrity.” Why then does Japan have such an interest in this man? Well,he got away with for one thing and the other thing he has done the one thing that freaks us out as a public and that thing is cannibalism. It grosses us out. It gives the willies. We need a bath in bleach after hearing about the graphic details,but, we are again staring at the train wreck.

The train wreck that is Issei Sagawa was/is in the annuals of crime perhaps the most weird because of the amount attention he has gotten with only one crime,but, it is that whole creepy cannibal thing again. What is surprising is the amount of lectures he gives as well as the website he runs with oh so delightful artwork of ladies tushes. Which he seems to have a thing for and yet, Japan goes the lecture to listen to him speak about the crime that horrify us. My take on it is this,we rarely as a public get to hear a criminal speak about their crimes and never in such grisly detail either. He happens to be nuts and free which is,also, appealing because even rarer is a cannibal than is free to begin with. In Japan, considering how rare this type of murder is to begin with it would almost instantly elevate him to cult status. So the train wreck rambles on and it is the human condition to look  no matter which country you happen to be in.

For further reading:

http://murderpedia.org/male.S/s/sagawa-issei.htm