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A former anesthesiology professor in Hong Kong stands accused of murder — which he denies — in the 2015 poisoning deaths of his wife and 16-year-old daughter, according to multiple news outlets.
Prosecutors have described the killings as the “deliberate and calculated” work of 53-year-old Khaw Kim-sun, then an associate professor at Chinese University and a senior medical officer at Hong Kong’s Prince of Wales Hospital,theSouth China Morning Postreported.
They died within hours, at the same hospital where Khaw worked, theMorning Postreports. Wong and Lilyhad 50 times the normal levelof carbon monoxide in their blood.
Khaw,who was arrested in September, is charged with two counts of murder, according to theMorning Post. He has pleaded not guilty,according to the Associated Press.
The case initiallyseemed to offer more questions than answers, but investigators zeroed in on the yoga ball in the trunk — and, eventually, Khaw — after ruling out possible mechanical issues, according to theMorning Post.
At trial, prosecutors have argued Khaw was having an affair with a student and his wife knew about it. Thoughthe two were estrangedand Wong had made some peace with her husband’s mistress,according to court testimony, she did not want to get a divorce.
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While the couple’s 22-year-old daughter, Khaw May Ling, spoke warmly of Khaw in court — and asked the judge if she could stay after she testified to “support her father” — she also said he held his children to exactingly high standards, according to theTimes.
“My father discouraged me from taking anti-depressants because he didn’t believe that I was depressed,” she said.
Khaw has reportedly volleyed wildly in his emotions during his trial, breaking into a smile when his eldest recalled a shared family joke and weeping when his daughter’s autopsy was described.
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“The last thing the accused wanted was for his 16-year-old to die,” prosecutor Andrew Bruce said on Wednesday, according to theMorning Post.
But, he told the nine-member jury: “If that person knew what was in the car was carbon monoxide and knew it was a dangerous gas likely to kill you, you can confirm this person had homicide on his mind.”
Khaw has said that daughter Lily may have used the yoga ball in the car in her own suicide plot — an explanation that prosecutor Bruce dismissed, according to theTimes.
source: people.com
