From an early age, Charles Ng was a loner. Born in Hong Kong in 1960, Ng was beaten as a child and developed a serious case of kleptomania as a teenager, which isolated him from any potential friends. Ng was also a lifelong troublemaker. However, no one could possibly guess that the social outcast with sticky fingers would eventually spiral into sadistic serial killing alongside his friend, Leonard Lake.
By the age of 15, Ng had been expelled from several schools and arrested for shoplifting. His strict father had had enough and sent him off to boarding school in England. But matters did not improve overseas–Ng resumed stealing from fellow students and was once again expelled, returning to Hong Kong.
At 18, Charles Ng struck out on his own. He obtained a student visa to attend college in California, although he dropped out after just one semester. Around this time, Ng met Leonard Lake, who was 15 years his senior, through a war gamer advertisement Lake had placed in a magazine. Although we can only speculate what went down at this meeting, what we do know is that the two men had more than just gaming interests in common: Both had an affinity for violence that would soon prove deadly.