Shenzhen Zen

Annie the Headless Ack-ack Gunner
Folks, the colorful legal character assassination of the helpless-to-defend herself headless model Annie Pang continues. What follows has something for virtually everyone. Sex, probable lies, obscene videotapes, flamboyant suicide attempts, drugs - no rock 'n' roll - but it does have a quick guide to Cantonese drug slang.
Enjoy.
Though the coroner's investigation into the 1995 death of decapitated model Annie Pang is to officially determine when, how and why she died, Pang's youngest sister said Wednesday in Eastern Magistrate Court that police investigators have already told her family that she died of a drug overdose.
No official cause of Pang's mysterious death has ever been established ever since her skeleton and her skull in a waste basket were found in October 1999 on the floor of her bedroom in a 300-square-foot Yau Ma Tei /Waterloo Road flat owned by her long-time married lover John Fang. Fang, a lawyer is the brother of former former chief secretary of administration Anson Chan and son of renowned artist Fang Zhaoling, who died Monday.
``What did police ask tell you about the cause of her death?'' attorney Mary Jean Reimer who is representing the Pang family in the inquest asked Pang Po-yuk.
``The police said she died because of taking drugs,'' her sister replied. ``Police said they found white powder in her flat.''
``White powder being heroin?'' asked coroner Colin Mackintosh.
``Yes,'' said Pang Po-yuk.
No autopsy results for 31-year-old Pang, who smoked heroin at least once, according to two drug addicts who also testified Wednesday, have ever been released.In other testimony a bizarre and wanton portrait of a lonely, desperate, suicidal Pang was painted by a man who once bought dogs from her while she was living in a Sai Kung flat in 1993.
Pang, whose modeling career was essentially over by then, was attempting to breed and sell pomeranians at the flat owned by Fang, whose visits to her were declining at the time.
Siu Hong-wah said he was 19 when he received a phone call from Pang in response to a dogs/puppies-wanted ad he had placed in Oriental Daily News. He drove to Sai Kung and paid her HK$10,000 for three dogs but calls and invitations from her escalated after the transaction and ultimately took a sexual and morbidly melodramatic twist.
Siu told the five jurors that when he returned ``three or four'' more times at her invitation, Pang habitually greeted him in the nude or clad in sheer silk pajamas ``with nothing underneath.''
``I didn't pay any attention to this,'' Siu claimed, though he also described her as ``quite sexy, somewhat reckless and a very nice person.''
``I thought because she was a model that she wouldn't feel shame so I didn't pay attention.''
Furthermore she begged him to stay saying she was lonely and twice tried to kill herself in front of him when he refused to linger.
``She cut her wrist deeply to the bone with a paper cutter,'' said Siu, who denied any sexual relationship with Pang. ``I held her, helped to stop the bleeding and called 999.''
On another occasion Siu said Pang swallowed an estimated 50 blue oval tablets he believed were sleeping pills as he left.
``She was treating me like a boyfriend. She took all the pills in front of me and began shouting like a psychotic patient and running around naked,'' he said.
``In response to that what did you do?'' asked Reimer.
``I drove off. I did return to take a peek at her. She was making phone calls and seemed normal so I thought she was okay.''``Did you have any thought that they weren't sleeping pills? Maybe vitamins or something else?'' asked Reimer.
``I didn't care,'' Siu replied. ``She looked like she was safe.''
According to previous testimony from family members an increasingly depressed, insomniatic and insecure Pang left the Sai King flat in 1994 at the behest of Fang who told her he wanted to rent it out. He moved her to the smaller Yau Ma Tei flat where living expenses from him declined and her debts to loansharks escalated, ultimately forcing her mother and older sister to break off contact with her.
Two former junkies, described also as Pang's ``casual friends'' told coroner's officer Dee Crebbin and Mackintosh in often contradictory and occasionally unintentionally humorous testimony that they had smoked heroin at least once with Pang after she visited their illegal porn videotape business on Temple Street in 1994.
Chow Wai-chung described Pang as a ``rookie'' heroin user who needed assistance in ``chasing the dragon'' and using the ``ack-ack gun.''
That term as well as more Canto-drug slang ``the harmonica method'' had Mackintosh patiently asking twice for definitions. Chow explained that ``harmonica'' and ``dragon'' were the same term for smoking or inhaling burning heroin fumes off aluminum foil and that the ``ack-ack gun'' was smoking heroin mixed with tobacco in a hollowed out cigarette.
Chow's and fellow user Ka Kong-tin's versions of events were both often self-contradictory and contradicted each other regarding the number of times they'd visited Pang, where and how they met her and the number of people she'd smoked with. They both agreed however that she had incessently begged them for as much as HK$100,000 to pay off loansharks and appeared to be virtually penniless.
Ka drew chuckes though from court observers and officials when he corrected a reference to their obscene ``DVD'' business.
``They were tapes,'' he said. ``DVDs weren't on the market in 1994.''
'The inquest continues today with testimony from Fang tenatively expected for Monday after the Friday funeral for his mother.