Bentham school pupil who is notorious 80s serial killer could escape death penalty after 27 years

Charles Ng, 65, is among 548 condemned prisoners whose death sentences Governor Gavin Newsom wants to commute to life imprisonment without parole.

Ng was sentenced to death in 1999 for murdering 11 people – six men, three women and two baby boys – in a series of killings with accomplice Leonard Lake.

But decades before the crimes, Ng had spent his teenage years in Lancashire.

Born in Hong Kong to a wealthy family, he came to England in 1977 to attend Bentham Grammar School in North Yorkshire as a boarder at the age of 14.

During the holidays, he stayed with his uncle Rufus Good and aunt Bernie at their home in Station Road, New Longton.

His family had reportedly sent him abroad after expulsions from schools in Hong Kong.

In a 1985 Associated Press report, former Bentham headmaster John Hagan recalled Ng being caught stealing money from another pupil, while a teacher remembered boys avoiding him.

Ng later moved to the United States, joined the Marines and became associated with Lake, a former Marine and survivalist.

Ng and Lake abducted, tortured and murdered victims between 1984 and 1985 at a remote property near Wilseyville, in northern California.

Investigators discovered human remains of up to 25 people in and around what was described as a sexual torture chamber and videotapes documenting abuse of captive women.

Police said some of the victims were killed at the cabin.

Others were turned loose and hunted down in the woods.

When the cabin was searched evidence was found of funeral pyres and 45lbs of human bones were collected.

Authorities said a videotape was recovered called “The M Ladies” in which Ng and Lake demanded the women submit to becoming sex slaves or face death.

One of the video tapes showed a girl tied to a chair having her clothes cut off and being told: ‘You can scream like the rest of them but it don’t do you any good’.

Ng was just 23 when the killing spree began.

Their crimes came to light after Lake was arrested in June 1985 following an attempted theft from a hardware store.

He swallowed cyanide in custody and died days later. Ng fled to Canada, where he was arrested the following month.

After a six-year extradition battle, he was returned to the US in 1991. He was convicted of 11 murders in February 1999 and sentenced to death that June.

California's Supreme Court upheld the sentence in 2022.

Ng spent decades at the notorious San Quentin Prison before a transfer, reported earlier this year, to the California Medical Facility in Vacaville.

According to the BBC, California has not executed anyone since 2006. Newsom imposed a moratorium in 2019 and on Thursday (November 5) announced plans to commute all 548 death sentences.

He said state-sanctioned killing was incompatible with California's values. However, 382 proposed commutations require Supreme Court approval, and it remains unclear whether Ng’s has taken effect.

Even if his death sentence is lifted, he would spend the rest of his life in prison without the possibility of parole.