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What The 2026 Trial Reveals - The Abby Choi Murder · Missing Context

• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: Abby got into a car driven by her former brother-in-law, Anthony Kong.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: A short time later, her ex-husband, Alex Kong, joined them.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: But Abby never made it to pick up her daughter.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: Three days later, police entered a house in Lung May village in Hong Kong's Taipao district.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: Inside, they found human remains that were later identified as Abby's.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: Alex was her former husband.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: Anthony had worked as her driver, and their father, Quang Kao, was the registered owner of an apartment Abby had bought in 2019 for more than 72 million Hong Kong dollars, which was a little over 9 million US dollars at the time.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: The prosecution says a dispute over that apartment led to Abby's killing.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: All three men deny the murder charges.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: The evidence presented in court include a hammer, a refrigerator, and other equipment allegedly bought in the days before Abby disappeared.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: And an attack that began inside a car.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: But the conflict over the apartment had been building for months.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: Abby had continued supporting her former in-laws even after her marriage to Alex ended.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: And over time, this arrangement became something the families caught used to.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: To see how Abby's remains ended up inside a house in a rural Hong Kong village, we need to look at the ties that kept her connected to the Quang family.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: This is missing context.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: Stories from Asia and the Asian diaspora.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: Abby Choi was 28 when she died.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: In Hong Kong, she was known for her work in fashion, her appearances at events around the world, and her presence on social media.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: She attended fashion shows including Paris Fashion Week, traveled, traded stock, and shared glimpses of her life online.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: Her photographs showed dinners, holidays, friends, and fashion events.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: There were also plenty of pictures with her children.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: Because Abby was a mother of four.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: She had her first two children with Alex Kuang, whom she had known since she was a teenager.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: Her mother, Sheng Yin Fa, told the court that the two started dating in high school.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: Abby became pregnant at 17.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: Alex moved into her family's home, and they married the following year.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: Their marriage eventually ended, but having children together meant that Abby and Alex remained connected.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: A few years later, Abby began a relationship with Chris Tam.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: Chris already knew Alex as well.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: They'd been classmates before Alex changed schools, and Chris actually met Abby through him.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: He and Abby eventually became a couple, and Abby had two more children.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: The older children lived primarily with Alex's family.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: Abby remained very involved in their lives and also in helping the Quang family.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: That help went well beyond co-parenting.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: Abby paid living expenses and provided property for her former in-laws to live in.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: One of the biggest parts of that arrangement was an apartment in Kaduri Hill, one of Hong Kong's most exclusive residential areas.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: And it was that apartment that would become the center of the conflict in the months before Abby's death.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: In 2019, Abby bought the Kaduri Hill apartment for her older children to live in with their father and grandparents.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: According to her mother's recent testimony, this apartment was also meant to be an investment for the children.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: The Tam family had actually funded the purchase, according to evidence heard at trial.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: This allowed Abby's older kids to live with Alex's family, while Abby raised her two younger children with Chris.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: The prosecution has said Abby also wanted to avoid any potential tension within the Tam family over the older children's living arrangements.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: There was also another detail about the purchase.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: Abby already owned property, which meant registering the new apartment in her own name would have involved paying more stamp duty, which is the tax charged on property transactions.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: Instead, the apartment was registered in the name of Alex's father, Quang Kao.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: Abby continued paying the bills, and, according to her mother, the Quang family understood that the apartment belonged to the children.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: It had not been given to Kao as his own property.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: Sheng also told the court that Kao had agreed to cooperate if Abby ever wanted to sell it.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: For years Abby paid for the apartment's upkeep and the family's day-to-day needs.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: Her mother said that included renovations, household expenses, and domestic helpers and drivers.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: Sheng's account of the arrangement was blunt.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: She said the Quangs contributed virtually nothing towards raising the children, not even a bottle of milk.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: On October 8th, 2026, she went even further, describing the family as bloodsuckers.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: In her testimony, she said they had benefited from Abby's generosity without contributing even a single dollar for the children.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: The defense challenged that picture, particularly the suggestion that Kao depended on Abby financially.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: His lawyers pointed to the businesses he'd pursued after retiring from the police, arguing that he had his own sources of income and could have put in money towards the apartment.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: But Sheng disputed that account.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: She said Abby had been paying Kao's living expenses and medical bills.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: And when the defense pointed to Kao's Rolls-Royce as an example of how well he must have been doing in business, Sheng told a court that Abby had bought him the car.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: Kao had little money of his own.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: Then Chris Tam took the stand.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: And he had more to say about why Abby kept supporting the Kwong's.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: According to Chris, Abby had given the Tam family the impression that the Quong's were financially comfortable.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: She didn't want her older children to be looked down on because of their father's circumstances, particularly when their younger siblings were part of a wealthier household.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, Abby was supporting her older children's home life, making sure they had a similar upbringing to her younger kids, while also trying to shield them from comparisons.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: Chris said Abby had kept the extent of that financial support from him.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: When he was asked why the Kaduri apartment had been registered in Cao's name, he said he didn't know whether Abby understood how to handle investment funds properly.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: He said he was shocked to discover that Abby had funneled millions of Hong Kong dollars from the Tam family to the Quangs to help their failing businesses.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: We can't know exactly what drove each of Abby's decisions, but Chris's testimony suggests that she was concerned about how her older children might be treated and how they might feel about the differences between their father's family and the family they shared with their younger siblings.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: It also raises the possibility that Abby may have been trying to give the Quangs some financial security of their own, a foundation they could build on, so her older children wouldn't have to pay the price for the Quang's lack of wealth and status.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: For a while, the arrangement seemed to work.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: Then, by 2022, Abby wanted to change it.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_00: Her older children had changed schools, and she wanted to move them closer.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: She began looking at another property and planned to sell the Kidori Hill apartment.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: Cao was not willing to give up the property.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: He stood to lose a lot more than an apartment.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: This was a multi-million dollar home in one of Hong Kong's wealthiest neighborhoods, and it was registered in his name.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: According to Abby's mother, he refused to agree to the sale or to move out.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: If he let this property go, there was no guarantee Abby would ever put another one in his name again.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: The disagreement became increasingly serious.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: Chris told a court about an argument at Kidori Hill in the summer of 2022 after one of Abby's daughters developed a fever.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: He said he witnessed Kao lose his temper, insult Abby, and call her a birthing machine.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: Chris also testified that Cao tried to strike Abby twice, but she managed to dodge him.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: According to Chris, Abby was furious after this confrontation.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: She described the Quongs as frightening and unappreciative of everything she had done for them.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: So this was no longer a disagreement about whether or not to sell an apartment.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: Abby had been supporting her former in-laws while trying to protect her older children from being looked down on.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: Now, her relationship with the family had deteriorated to the point where she wanted to reclaim the property and separate herself from them.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: After Abby threatened legal action, Kao eventually agreed to sign a document allowing the sale to proceed and forcing the Quang family to move out.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: But prosecutors have pointed to a strange provision in that document that allowed Kao to move back into the apartment if Abby died before the sale was completed.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: After Abby's death, the question of who really owned the apartment became a legal dispute of its own.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: Her mother went to the High Court to stop Kao from claiming the property as his own.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: She asked the court to recognize Abby as its rightful owner.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: Sheng also testified that Abby had been trying to reclaim other assets registered in Kao's name.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: She said Abby was frustrated by what she saw as a lack of appreciation from the Quang family and believed her former mother-in-law was speaking negatively about her to the children.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: The defense asked whether Abby actually needed to sell the Kaduri Hill property to afford another apartment.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: Her mother agreed that she did not.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: Abby could have bought another home without selling this one.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: But according to Sheng, that wasn't really the point.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: Abby wanted to reclaim all the assets she had paid for and remove Kao from any ownership.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_00: Abby contacted estate agents and was willing to accept less money for the apartment rather than let the dispute drag on.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: In messages to her mother, she expressed frustration with the Quang's refusal to cooperate.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: On the morning of February 21st, 2023, Abby went to Kadori Hill with a prospective buyer.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: By that afternoon, she would be dead.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: On the day that Abby disappeared, she was supposed to pick up one of her daughters from school.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: Earlier in the day, Anthony and Alex had met at a Starbucks.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: The jury was shown CCTV footage from inside the cafe.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: Anthony appears to demonstrate something with his hands, moving his right arm up and down.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: Prosecutors say he may have been showing Alex how to pull Abby's head down during the attack.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: Later, Anthony picked Abby up.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: Alex joined them at another location.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: Abby was still in contact with her family during the journey.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: At around 2 p.m., she exchanged messages with her mother and mentioned needing to pick up her daughter from school.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: Her last recorded online activity was at 2.44 p.m.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: The prosecution says she was attacked inside the vehicle shortly afterwards.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: A forensic report presented to the court said the injuries to Abby's skull were consistent with blows from a hammer.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: Her blood was found inside the vehicle, along with DNA from Alex and Anthony.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: Electric saw marks were also found on her remains.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_00: Prosecutors have described the attack as savage.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: CCTV footage then traced the vehicle towards Langmei.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: It arrived at around 3.12 p.m.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_00: Another vehicle connected to the Quang family was already there, with Kao standing beside it.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: A large plastic box was taken from Kao's vehicle and carried towards the house.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_00: Other footage showed the men around the property wearing surgical masks.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: Prosecutors described them as calm and seemingly unfazed by what was happening.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: They also argue that the attack was planned in advance, pointing to purchases made in the days before Abby disappeared.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: CCTV showed Anthony and Cow visiting shops and buying items prosecutors say were intended to deal with Abby's remains.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: The purchases included an electric saw, a meat mincer, a refrigerator, a large chopping board, a large pot, and deodorizing spray.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_00: The hammer had been bought six days earlier, and the house in Langmay had been rented before Abby disappeared.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: Taken together, prosecutors say, these purchases show preparations for both the killing and the concealment of what happened afterwards.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: Later that evening on February 21st, a neighbor reported hearing the sound of an electric saw coming from the house and noticing a strong smell.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_00: The next day, February 22nd, Abby was reported missing.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_00: Her family had already been trying to reach her.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: Chris called Shang to ask whether Abby was with her.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_00: Sheng then called Anthony, who'd been responsible for taking Abby around the day before.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_00: According to Shung's testimony, Anthony gave her different explanations for what had happened.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: At first, he said Abby had argued with someone on the phone, got out of the car in anger, and walked away.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_00: He claimed he didn't know where she'd gone.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_00: In another call, he said Abby had arranged to go drinking with friends and would return the next day.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_00: He told Shung not to worry.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_00: But Sheng said Abby didn't drink.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_00: She also knew Abby had messaged her about picking up her daughter from school.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_00: As the hours passed, Anthony's explanations about where Abby had asked him to leave her changed.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_00: Sheng became increasingly suspicious.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_00: When she kept pressing him, Anthony grew angry and told her to stop calling.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_00: He suggested Abby would come back when she was sober.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_00: By around 11 p.m., Sheng and Chris went to the police station to report to Abby missing.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_00: From the police station, Sheng called Alex to tell him what she was doing.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_00: She testified that he became livid and scolded her for contacting the police without telling him first and questioned why she had acted so quickly.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_00: Sheng pushed back.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: Her daughter was missing, she told him.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_00: Then she asked whether Alex and his father had taken Abby somewhere.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_00: Sheng later told the court that she had contacted several members of the Kwang household that night, but none of them seemed concerned about Abby's disappearance.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: Chris had his own unsettling experience that night.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: When he went to the Quang family's home at Kidori Hill and asked about Abby, he was struck by how calm everyone seemed.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: According to his testimony, Alex's mother suggested that perhaps someone had kidnapped Abby for money.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: But the next few days brought a far more alarming turn.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_00: On February 23rd, Chris was driving with Anthony, who was supposed to show him where he'd last dropped Abby off.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_00: Chris received a call from a police officer.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_00: The officer told him that police strongly suspected the Quang family, including Anthony, and instructed Chris to get away from him immediately.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_00: Chris said he suddenly felt that he might be in grave danger himself.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: These were Sheng and Chris's recollections of two frightening nights given in court more than three years later.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: The jury will have to weigh their testimony against the evidence.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_00: But their accounts give us a sense of how alarming and confusing those days must have been.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_00: Abby was missing, the explanations were hard to make sense of, and with every passing hour, her family had more reason to fear that something terrible had happened.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_00: Three days after Abby was last seen, police tracked her phone to a house in Lung May village.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_00: Inside, they found human remains.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_00: They were later identified as Abby's.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_00: Investigators discovered that the house had been rented by Cao.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_00: According to recent testimony by the homeowner, Cao had inquired about surveillance cameras in the area and inside the house.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_00: Police searched the property and other locations connected to the family, including vehicles and a landfill, looking for further evidence and the rest of Abby's remains.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_00: Alex had also disappeared.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_00: Police launched a search for him, and he was eventually arrested trying to flee by boat.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_00: The investigation widened beyond the three men now facing the murder charges.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_00: Several other people were arrested or questioned in connection with the case, although they didn't all become part of the murder prosecution.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: Abby had more than a hundred thousand followers on Instagram and was a familiar face at fashion events.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_00: Once police confirmed that she'd been killed, photographs of her and details of her private life spread quickly across Hong Kong.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_00: As investigators pieced together the events of February 21st, the apartment and the conflict within the family became central to the prosecution's account of what had happened.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_00: More than three years after Abby's death, the case is being heard in Hong Kong's High Court.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_00: A nine-member jury was selected on September 30th, 2026, and the prosecution began its opening statement that day.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_00: The trial is expected to last around 45 days.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_00: Alex Kuang, Anthony Kuang, and Quang Kao have all pleaded not guilty to murder.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_00: Alex and Anthony have pleaded guilty, though, to the separate charge of preventing the lawful burial of Abby's body.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_00: Kao has pleaded not guilty to that charge as well.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_00: In its opening statement, the prosecution laid out its theory that the dispute over the apartment was the motive, that preparations had been made before Abby disappeared, and that the attack took place during what Abby believed was a journey to pick up her daughter.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_00: The jury has so far heard evidence about the alleged preparations, the forensic findings, and the movements of the vehicles.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_00: It's also heard from Abby's mother, who described the financial support Abby had provided, the threats made by Kao, and what happened when she tried to find her daughter.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_00: The defense has challenged parts of that account, including claims about Kao's finances and his contribution to the apartment.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_00: It has disputed the suggestion that the Quang family was financially dependent on Abby.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_00: Chris Tam's testimony also brought out just how much tension there was within the family.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_00: He spoke about Abby's efforts to make sure her older children didn't feel they had less than their younger siblings.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_00: And he described an argument in which he said Cow insulted Abby and tried to hurt her.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_00: The testimonies show how money, family expectations, and the children's place within the family had become tangled up.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_00: Abby had tried to make sure her older children enjoyed the same comforts as their younger siblings.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_00: But by this point, she'd also grown fed up with the Kwong's and was trying to reclaim what she believed was hers.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_00: On February 21st, Abby disappeared during a routine drive to pick up her daughter from school.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_00: By the next day, her mother and Chris were desperately trying to find Abby.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: Three days later, police found Abby's remains in Langmei.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_00: And beyond what has come out in court so far is the loss at the heart of this case.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_00: Four children who've lost their mother.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_00: A woman who was trying to give all of them the best life she could.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_00: This is missing context.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_00: Stories from Asia and the Asian diaspora.