The trial opened at the High Court on 2 November 2026. The 28-year-old defendant pleaded not guilty to murdering his former girlfriend, a 23-year-old yoga instructor found dead in a bathtub at the Ritz-Carlton in Tsim Sha Tsui in June 2022. i-CABLE News reported that he admitted manslaughter.
Prosecutors said the defendant checked into the hotel on 28 June, extended his stay the next day and bought a knife at Chan Chi Kee Cutlery Company on Shanghai Street. They said he later went to the hotel with the woman and argued that the sequence showed the killing was planned.
The prosecution said offers of a Delvaux handbag and an Hermès scarf were used to draw her to the room. A friend who met the woman before her planned US trip for a yoga course said she had seen a handbag photo in messages and heard the woman say she planned to ask for a scarf too.
The woman did not make her planned trip, and her mother reported her missing on 30 June. Prosecutors said the defendant initially told police he did not know where she was. That evening, he went to a police station with a lawyer, who handed police a hotel card holder and two key cards.
In the prosecution’s account, police found the woman face down in the bathtub, with bloodstains elsewhere in the room and a knife in the bath. Autopsy evidence gave the cause of death as blood loss and put the estimated time of death between 4.35pm on 29 June and 4.35am on 30 June.
Forensic evidence described in court indicated that she had been attacked from behind while standing, and that a shoeprint at the scene matched the defendant’s Gucci trainers.