The air inside a traditional village temple is usually thick with the scent of burning incense, sandalwood, and centuries of quiet prayers. It is a place where people seek refuge from the chaotic, neon-drenched streets of downtown Hong Kong. But on a sweltering July morning, the Tin Hau Temple in Tai Po became something entirely different. It became a tomb.
Money changes people. The pursuit of it, especially when desperation sets in, can strip away the thin veneer of civility we all pretend to maintain.
This is the story of how a dispute over a relatively small amount of money spiraled into a calculated, suffocating nightmare. It is a glimpse into the dark corners of human nature, where greed overrides empathy, and a life can be extinguished for the price of a used car.
The Quiet Village and the Unholy Plot
Tai Po is a district that bridges the gap between Hong Kong’s hyper-modern urban core and its rural, traditional past. In the small villages scattered throughout the area, life moves at a slower pace. Neighbors know each other. Secrets are hard to keep.
Yet, beneath this peaceful surface, a deadly plan was forming.
Chan Kwok-hung and his accomplice, Lau Wai-shing, were not criminal masterminds. They were ordinary men driven by extraordinary malice. They had a problem with a man named Luk Sze-man. Specifically, they had a financial dispute with him. In the grand scheme of global finance, the sum was trivial. In the narrow, desperate minds of Chan and Lau, it was worth killing for.
They did not choose a dark alleyway or a secluded forest. They chose the local Tin Hau temple, a sacred space dedicated to the goddess of the sea.
Consider the audacity of that choice. A temple is a sanctuary. It is a place where even the most hardened individuals usually show some semblance of respect. To lure a man there with the intent to do him harm requires a specific kind of coldness. It suggests that to Chan and Lau, the setting was just a convenient backdrop—a place where they could trap their prey away from prying eyes.
Minutes of Terror
What happened next inside that temple was not a sudden crime of passion. It was a methodical, brutal assault.
When Luk Sze-man arrived, he was outnumbered and outmatched. Chan and Lau set upon him. They didn’t use a gun or a knife. They chose weapons that required physical exertion, prolonged effort, and an absolute refusal to look at their victim's humanity.
They used adhesive tape.
They bound him. They wrapped the tape around his face, covering his nose and his mouth.
Think about the sensation of suffocating. The panic that sets in when the lungs cannot expand. The desperate, primal instinct to draw breath. Luk Sze-man fought for his life in that temple, his frantic struggles echoed by the silent statues of deities looking down on the horror.
It takes several minutes for a human being to die of suffocation. During every one of those minutes, Chan and Lau had a choice. They could have stopped. They could have cut the tape. They could have looked at the terrified eyes of the man beneath them and remembered what it means to be human.
They did none of those things. They held him down. They watched him weaken. They watched him die.
The Illusion of Getaway
After the life had left Luk’s body, the killers faced the grim reality of what they had done. The adrenaline of the act faded, replaced by the cold panic of concealment. They abandoned the body there, wrapped in the tools of his death, inside the sacred walls.
They thought they could return to their normal lives. They thought the village would swallow the secret.
But murder leaves a psychic stain on a community. A body in a temple cannot remain hidden for long. When the discovery was made, the shockwave rippled through Tai Po and across Hong Kong. The sacrilege of the location amplified the horror of the crime. The police response was swift, meticulous, and relentless.
Forensic teams combed the temple, collecting the very tape used to extinguish Luk’s life. In the modern era, criminals leave a digital and biological trail wherever they go. DNA, security camera footage from surrounding paths, and financial records tracking the dispute quickly closed the loop around Chan and Lau.
The illusion of their escape evaporated within days.
Justice in the High Court
The trial in Hong Kong’s High Court stripped away any lingering excuses the two men tried to proffer. Over weeks of testimony, the jury was forced to confront the stark reality of those final moments in the temple. The prosecution laid out the evidence with clinical precision, contrasting the sacred nature of the venue with the profanity of the act.
The defense attempted to minimize the roles, to paint the incident as a confrontation that got out of hand. But the tape told a different story. You do not accidentally wrap adhesive tape around a man’s airways. It requires intent. It requires a decision to deny him air.
The judge, in delivering the sentence, reflected the collective revulsion of the community.
There are crimes that shock the conscience because of their scale, and there are crimes that shock because of their intimacy. This was the latter. The cold, mechanical nature of the killing offered no room for leniency.
Chan Kwok-hung and Lau Wai-shing were handed life sentences.
In Hong Kong, a life sentence means exactly that. The prison gates close, and the world moves on without you. The city will continue its frantic, upward trajectory. The neon lights will flash, millions will chase their fortunes, and the seasons will change. But for Chan and Lau, the rest of their earthly existence will be defined by four grey walls and the crushing weight of regret.
The Empty Temple
The legal system has done its job. The perpetrators are locked away. The files are closed and moved to the archives.
But for the family of Luk Sze-man, there is no clean resolution. A chair remains empty at the dinner table. A voice is missing from family gatherings. The manner of his departure—the sheer terror of those final minutes—is a shadow that will hang over his loved ones for the rest of their days.
The Tin Hau Temple in Tai Po has since been cleaned. The tape is gone. The forensic markers are removed. The scent of incense has returned, drifting out into the humid village air. Worshippers come and go, lighting sticks of joss paper, bowing before the altar, praying for health, prosperity, and safety.
Yet, if you stand quiet enough near the altar, away from the chatter of the street, the air feels a little heavier. The stone floors hold the memory of a desperate struggle. It stands as a silent monument to a universal truth we too often forget: the thinnest barrier separates civilization from savagery, and the true cost of greed is always paid in human blood.
