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HONG KONG, Sept. 12 (SCMP): Chan Yin-lam’s death has been the subject of wild conspiracy theories and unfounded rumors among many anti-government protesters since his naked body was found at sea last September, three months after Hong Kong was unprecedented. social unrest.
After a 12-day investigative hearing, a five-member jury returned an open verdict on Friday after coroner Ko Wai-hung ruled out both suicide and homicide as possible causes of death.
When news of her death first broke, videos of the 15-year-old girl expressing her support for the protesters went viral, prompting lawsuits for the “truth.” Some even accused the police of being responsible and behind a cover-up, prompting strong official denials and condemnation of false accusations.
Before the jury began their deliberation, the coroner outlined two paths to a conclusion: they must first consider whether Chan died from an accident, and otherwise issue an open verdict.
He ruled out suicide and homicide as possible causes of death, saying the evidence was insufficient to support this beyond a reasonable doubt.
the Send discusses important facts that have been established to quell the rumors, as well as the circumstances of Chan’s death for which the Forensic Court was unable to provide definitive explanations.
1. What happened just before Chan entered the water?
It is unclear when and where Chan entered the sea, after security cameras last caught her in a housing estate next to her school, the Hong Kong Institute of Design in Tiu Keng Leng, around 7 p.m. on 19. of September.
She was also seen on campus surveillance footage wandering around for 70 minutes, looking around and smiling to herself, pressing elevator buttons without entering elevators, moving a warning sign on a pedestrian bridge, and pushing the cart. from a janitor for no apparent reason.
According to taxi driver Chow Tai-lai, Chan got into his car that night and asked him to drive her to a construction site next to the Lohas Park MTR station, a few hundred meters from a boardwalk.
Sheriff Lee Ho-kit said his team tracked down the driver and investigated the area where Chan got out of the taxi, but could not locate any relevant footage. Another team tasked with locating Chan’s clothing along the coast also made no relevant findings, Lee added.
In Friday’s verdict, the jury said they could not determine whether Chow’s claims were true and concluded that Chan last appeared inside the Tiu Keng Leng MTR station after 7 p.m. on September 19.
As for why Chan was naked when she was found in the waters of Tseung Kwan O, the witnesses who testified in the investigation offered various explanations.
Sergeant Man Wai-cheung said it was possible that the strong waves washed the clothes of a drowned person.
That suggestion was questioned by Philip Beh Swan-lip, a senior clinician at the University of Hong Kong medical school, who said that while loose clothing can be washed away, tight-fitting underwear is unlikely to come off. naturally.
On Friday, the jury sided with Beh, ruling that Chan had entered the water without clothes.
2. Chan’s state of mind and whether he was suicidal
An important topic of conversation surrounding the case was whether Chan, a competent swimmer, would have committed suicide by jumping into the water.
The court heard that while he had emotional problems during the year, he denied wanting to kill himself. She also reportedly wanted to start over in college instead of looking back at her past as a troubled child.
Chan’s rebellious behavior emerged when he was in elementary school. The streak worsened after he sprained his foot in Form One, an injury that prevented him from enjoying his diving hobby as before. Her mental state fluctuated and last year she was detained three times in a girls’ home.
In March, Chan was first diagnosed with oppositional defiant disorder, marked by irritability and argumentative behavior, when he was admitted to hospital during his detention.
During the same hospital visit, he told psychiatrists for the first time that he heard voices in his head.
He exhibited strange behavior at school on September 19, the day before he disappeared. Chan’s grandfather, Ho Yun-loi, said that he had filled his room overnight and complained of hearing voices that made it difficult for him to sleep.
Despite his mental instability, Chan denied that he wanted to commit suicide with doctors and social workers. People close to Chan have described her as a happy child, and social workers have noted that she was an intelligent and mature teenager who probably would not kill herself despite family problems.
The court invited a psychiatrist to evaluate the possibility of Chan throwing himself into the sea during a psychotic episode.
Forensic psychiatrist Robyn Ho Mei-yee, who testified as an independent expert, suggested that Chan may have been experiencing the initial stages of psychosis in August last year, when he exhibited abnormal behavior in the girl’s home.
He supported his theory by pointing to Chan’s father, who was diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder, and said that Chan was 10 percent more likely to be affected by mental illness than his peers because of his family history.
The expert further suggested that a patient with psychosis would face difficulties in body coordination during an episode.
However, the jury said on Friday they could not determine whether Chan had psychotic symptoms on September 19, after Ho admitted that he based his conclusion on secondhand findings.
3. If Chan drowned
Pathologist Garrick Li Yuk-wah, who performed the autopsy, said he could not determine how the teenager died, but acknowledged the “clear possibility” that she had drowned.
He said the body was found to exhibit a moderate level of decomposition, indicating that Chan may have died within 24 hours of his last appearance.
Since the body was relatively intact despite decomposition, doctors believed that Chan had not been subjected to violence or sexual assault prior to his death. But they cannot be completely sure, citing the possibility that any bruising on the body has disappeared due to the whitening of the skin.
Given the widespread shedding and bleaching of the skin on the limbs, Li believed that the body had been in the water for a considerable period.
However, the doctor admitted that he was unable to perform further examinations of the decomposed internal organs to support the hypothesis. He also said that it was rare for a swimmer to drown.
Beh, the HKU medical expert, questioned the pathologist’s conclusion, pointing to the lack of evidence to show that Chan may have drowned.
Typical symptoms of drowning, according to Beh, included foam from the mouth and nose, water inside the lungs and stomach, as well as swollen air sacs, but the pathologist made no such findings at autopsy.
Beh said that most of the watery fluid was only found on one side of Chan’s lungs, and that there was little on the other side and in his stomach, which was different from typical observations of a drowning victim.
In response, Li admitted that he could not explain the findings and could only guess that one side of the lungs contained more fluid because it was breaking down at a faster rate than the other.
4. How the court responded to the speculation
The investigation attempted to address two main rumors from skeptics and anti-government activists surrounding the identity of Chan’s mother and the girl captured by the school’s security cameras.
Cynics cast doubt on Ho Pui-yee as Chan’s mother when she first appeared under the media attention, stating in a television interview that her daughter had taken her own life and was not killed by the police, and that the teenager had stopped participating in the protests. because she discovered that “the nature of the movement had changed.”
A DNA test performed later for the investigation confirmed the couple’s relationship.
Some have questioned the veracity of the security images provided by Chan’s school, suggesting that the girl dressed in a loose blouse and pants in the images could be an imposter.
When provided with a still image of the girl in the pictures, Chan’s family members, social workers and friends identified her. Ho Yun-loi said that he saw his granddaughter in the same outfit on the morning of September 19 and asked her if she wore those clothes to school.
The jury also accepted in its verdict that the girl in the pictures was indeed Chan.
As for how much the teenager was involved in the protests, judicial evidence suggested that Chan was not as involved as a front-line protester would.
The court heard that he participated in various demonstrations in support of the students and helped distribute promotional brochures, but was not on the front lines. In a post on his Instagram account, Chan said he received tear gas when he passed a protest scene in Tsim Sha Tsui on August 11, but did not participate.
Prisoner Ng Siu-kong, Chan’s pen pal whom he described as her boyfriend, testified that Chan once mentioned that he sympathized with protesters who were beaten by the police. – South China Morning Mail
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