Videotaped Death Threats Were Just ‘Bluffs,’ Ng Testifies

Confronted with grisly videos considered to be the strongest evidence against him, accused serial killer Charles Ng said Monday that death threats made to two victims on the tapes were “bluffs” and that his brutal behavior was intended only to “erotically turn on” his alleged accomplice.

Ng, who is accused of murdering 12 people, took part in the videos recorded at the Calaveras County home of his alleged accomplice, Leonard Lake, where the bodies were found. In the videos, Ng taunts, disrobes and threatens two women who were allegedly used as sex slaves before being killed along with the rest of the victims in the mid-1980s.

Prosecutors cite the tapes as proof of Ng’s involvement in the killings. But Ng insisted that he was role playing as part of Lake’s sadomasochistic fantasies.

“Part of the game meant that whatever Leonard Lake said, I kind of concurred,” Ng said under cross-examination by Deputy Atty. Gen. Sharlene Honnaka. “It was to project solidarity and seriousness of what we were doing.”

Ng said he based some of his actions in the videos on movies he knew Lake enjoyed, in particular, a scene from “Death Wish,” in which a victim’s shirt is torn off.

“I thought this act might turn him on,” he said, explaining why he ripped off Brenda O’Connor’s shirt. “I was trying to act macho,” he said.

Lake committed suicide after his arrest in 1985 for shoplifting a $75 vise at a Bay Area lumberyard.

In the two videos, Ng can be seen cuffing the victims’ hands and legs and backing up Lake’s threats that the victims could be killed as others had been. At one point he tells O’Connor that her pleas are futile because he and Lake are “coldhearted.”

Ng, who admitted previously that he helped Lake bury the bodies of two men, said he did not believe that Lake was capable of killing women.

Ng said he regretted taking part in the videos and cut short his trip to the remote cabin to return to his home in San Francisco. “I didn’t want to be up there,” he said. “I didn’t want to get further involved.”

But the victims’ relatives doubted his story. “Is he going to admit he killed them? Give me a break,” said Sharon Sellitto, the sister of one of the victims. “The only thing he regrets is getting caught.”

Honnaka stepped up her efforts to discredit Ng on her second day of questioning, introducing new evidence that included cartoon drawings by Ng that depict women and children being tortured. Ng admitted that he drew most of the cartoons in a Canadian prison while awaiting extradition.

One drawing showed a mother holding a baby on a plate. A caption on the drawing reads: “Daddy dies. Mommy cries. Baby dies.” When asked about the drawing, Ng said it was a “microwave baby” and a satirical response to prison rumors that he and Lake had microwaved babies to death.

Another drawing, headed with the caption “Lake’s Baby Die School,” showed Ng wildly swinging a baby in a pillowcase. Lake is shown prepared to dump two babies in a barrel of water.

Ng fled to Canada, where he was caught shoplifting and was eventually extradited to California in 1991. The case was mired in legal motions for another seven years before coming to trial in October. The case was moved to Orange County because of pretrial publicity in Northern California.