Ng Would Fit Well Into a Prison Life, Defense Says

The very personality trait that made him susceptible to the control of a twisted killer and eventually led him to murder 11 people makes Charles Ng a good candidate for life in prison instead of execution, attorneys for the convicted serial killer argued Monday.

Contending that Ng suffers from “dependent personality disorder,” his lawyers painted a more humane picture of their client as the penalty phase of the trial resumed after a month’s delay.

He is a man who has sponsored orphans in Asia and folds intricate origami patterns for his family and friends, the defense asserted, while his meek nature led him to go along with a murderous plot by a domineering friend.

“We are not asking you to save him, but to spare him,” William Kelley, Ng’s lead attorney, told the Orange County jury. “Life in prison is still punishment.”

Echoing a theme he used during the guilt phase of the trial, Kelley said Ng, 38, was a lackey of his friend, Leonard Lake, who both the defense and the prosecution agree was at the center of a killing spree in Northern California 14 years ago.

According to authorities, Lake and Ng, who became friends in the early 1980s, lured victims to Lake’s cabin in Calaveras County, where women were forced into sexual slavery and entire families killed for their possessions.

Lake, 39, committed suicide shortly after being arrested in 1985. Ng was caught in Canada and extradited in 1991. The case was moved to Orange County because of extensive pretrial publicity in Northern California.

Ng was convicted of 11 counts of first-degree murder in February. The defense had tried to pin the homicides solely on Lake.

Ng, Kelley said, is the product of a ultra-disciplined Hong Kong household in which his father often beat him for bad grades or failure to do homework. In Lake, Ng found another authority figure whom he looked up to because Lake was older and was a Vietnam veteran.

Kelley said Ng’s subservient personality is well suited to the authoritarian structure of prison life.

But that idea is “pure unadulterated drivel,” said Lola Stapley, 70, of Garden Grove, whose son, Scott, was one of the victims Ng is convicted of killing.

“We all had bad childhood events, but did we go and massacre two babies, their parents, my son, two co-workers?” Stapley asked, listing some of the victims.