The missing head of a top international model was found in a soup pot, police said yesterday as they charged two of her former in-laws with her murder.
bby Choi (28) disappeared last Tuesday.
Her dismembered legs were found three days later in a fridge in a makeshift butcher’s workshop but her head, torso and hands could not be found.
The police discovery was reported in the South China Morning Post.
Police said they were charging her ex-husband’s father and elder brother with murder, while his mother faces one count of perverting the course of justice.
The three suspects, aged 31 to 65, will appear in court today.
Ms Choi’s ex-husband, Alex Kwong (28) was arrested on Saturday afternoon but has not been charged.
The finds followed an extensive search over the weekend at a cemetery and at a flat where Ms Choi’s legs had earlier been found in a fridge.
Police also found the model and social media influencer’s identity card and credit cards in the ground-floor flat.
It is part of a three-storey rental house in the village of Lung Mei in Tai Po, a suburb of Hong Kong not far from the border with mainland China.
“Tools that are used to dismember human bodies were found in the flat, including meat grinders, chain saws, long raincoats, gloves, and masks,” Superintedent Alan Chung of the Hong Kong police said.
The house had been rented by Ms Choi’s former father-in-law a few weeks earlier, according to Mr Chung.
Ms Choi had financial disputes with her ex-husband and his family, the superintendent said.
The way she handled her financial assets made “some people” unhappy, he added.
Ms Choi’s two children with Mr Kwong are reportedly being cared for by her mother.
Ms Choi was considered to be a rising star in modelling and had appeared on the front cover of a Monaco fashion magazine this month.
She had also appeared in publications including Elle, Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar and was a regular at Paris Fashion Week. Her Instagram page, with more than 100,000 followers, has been filled with messages of condolence.
Although Hong Kong has a low crime rate, it has a history of gruesome murders.
In 2020, Cheung Kie-chung, a University of Hong Kong professor, was found guilty of murdering his wife in 2018.
Her body was found in a suitcase on the school’s campus.
In 2016, British banker Rurik Jutting was found guilty of murdering two Indonesian women he lured to his luxury apartment in 2014.
He admitted to torturing one of the women before stuffing her body in a suitcase.
Both men are serving life sentences, which are mandatory for murder convictions in Hong Kong.
Most perpetrators of violence against Hong Kong women are men, and the majority are known to their victims, according to a survey published by Lingnan University in 2022. (© Telegraph Media Group Ltd 2023)