March 14, 2001. Constable Leung Shing-yan is found dead in the corridor of a residential building. He has taken five bullets from his own service revolver.

Leung is engaged and about to get married. A post mortem reveals he is strangulated and his throat slit before he is shot. His revolver is missing.

Leung is part of Tsuen Wan's Lei Muk Shue police station patrol sub-unit. He is supposed to have lunch at the station. Instead, he swaps his lunch break with a colleague and goes on patrol alone.

Around noon, an unknown caller complains to police about excessive noise from his neighbour's flat on the fifth floor of Shek To House in Shek Wai Kok Estate.

Leung is sent to investigate the complaint. Around 12:25 pm Leung calls over police radio to say: no response to knocks on the door of the flat reported against.

Minutes later he is found dead, perhaps victim of a trap laid for him. But it is believed he has not been targeted personally, for any patrolling policeman in the area could have been sent to follow up the "noise" complaint.

Police offer a HK$1-million reward for information leading to the assailant's arrest and prosecution. A similar amount was put on the head of the territory's most-wanted criminal - Yip Kai-foon - in 1992.

March 26, 2001. A 30-year-old man is arrested. But he is released later because police are unable to recover the murder weapon - Leung's gun - from his possession, and thus charge him with murder.

(HK Edition 03/18/2006 page2)