Hong Kong skyline/FILE
The severed heads of 65-year-old Chau Wing-ki and his wife Siu Yuet-yee, 62, were found in March last year, stuffed into two refrigerators in a bloodstained apartment, days after they were reported missing.
The other remains were found in a rubbish bin, cooked and packed into lunchboxes with rice, in an attempt by the duo to hide the crime after they ran out of space in the refrigerators.
Their 30-year-old son Henry Chau pleaded not guilty to both counts of murder on Wednesday, reports said, as he and alleged accomplice Tse Chun-kei appeared on the second day of the trial before a packed court.
The South China Morning Post reported that Chau pleaded guilty to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsiblity on Tuesday, while Tse, 36, denied both counts of murder.
Both men have admitted preventing the couple’s lawful burial.
Prosecutors allege that Chau and Tse planned the murder for months, buying knives, refrigerators, microwave ovens and a rice cooker.
Chau initially told police that his parents had gone to mainland China, but later admitted to the murder on an Internet messaging group.
In evidence read to the city’s High Court Wednesday, he claimed that he planned to mislead the police in order to buy himself some time to say goodbye to friends.
“My murdering partner and I were planning to make it a missing person case and dump the body piece by piece,” he said in a group message.
Chau also called himself a “psychopath” in the messages and said: “I cannot empathise with people’s pain because of my experience from childhood and adolescence”.
The Post reported that Chau claims to have killed his parents with the help of Tse in the middle of an emotional breakdown, but prosecutors allege that the murder was carefully planned.
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