Okay, so for this deep dive, I want to start
by putting you in a very specific headspace.
Okay. It's June 2nd, 1985. It's a Sunday. You're
in South San Francisco. And it's one of those
days that just feels heavy, you know, maybe a
little overcast, just a standard boring weekend.
Right. The kind of day where you have a list
of chores you've been putting off. Exactly. You
need to fix a fence, maybe build a shelf. So
where do you go? You go to the lumber store.
The absolute center of the suburban universe.
It's the place where absolutely nothing, life
or death, is ever supposed to happen. It is,
I mean, the definition of mundane. Precisely.
It's the smell of sawdust, the sound of forklifts
beeping in reverse, guys in flannel shirts debating
plywood grades. It's safe. And in walks a man.
He looks. Completely unremarkable. He walks down
an aisle. He picks up a vice, a heavy -duty clamp
for a workbench. And he just walks out with it.
No attempt to pay. No elaborate distraction or
anything. Just the sheer audacity of, I want
this, so I am taking this. And this vice costs
$75. Now, adjusted for inflation, that's not
nothing, but it's not a diamond heist, you know.
No, it's petty theft. A nuisance crime. It is.
A store employee sees him, shouts, grabs him.
The guy panics, drops the vice into the trunk
of a Honda Prelude that's in the parking lot,
and then he just bolts. He runs away. And in,
you know, 99 % of scenarios, this is a misdemeanor.
It's a ticket. Maybe a night in the drunk tank
if the guy is intoxicated. It's just a story
the store clerk tells at a bar later that night.
Yeah. You'll never believe this. Some idiot tried
to steal a clamp. But this isn't that story because
that $75 vice, that was the loose thread on a
sweater that when you pull it, the entire garment
just disintegrates. It wasn't just a loose thread.
No. That theft didn't just lead to a shoplifting
charge. It led police to a remote cabin up in
the Sierra Nevada foothills, to a buried bunker,
and to a nightmare that California law enforcement
had absolutely no idea was happening. happening
right under their noses. It is the ultimate case
of the butterfly effect in criminal history.
I mean, a tiny, petty theft in a lumberyard unraveled
one of the most sophisticated, sadistic, and
just psychologically complex serial killing partnerships
the world has ever seen. Today, we are going
deep on Charles Eng and Leonard Lake. And I don't
use the term deep dive lightly here. We are not
just looking at the crimes themselves. Right.
We are looking at the years, literally decades
of legal warfare that followed. We're talking
about a case that went from a cabin in the woods
all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada. And
back again. And finally, to a trial that cost
the taxpayers of California $20 million. $20
million. It's a staggering number. And along
the way, we really have to unpack a very difficult.
dynamic, the relationship between a master and
a follower, the psychology of a die -killing
team. And how a kleptomaniac compulsions this
inability to stop stealing small, stupid things
brought down a man who was getting away with
mass murder. It's a case study in how the legal
system handles, or I guess mishandles, pure unadulterated
obstructionism. So let's get into it. We usually
start with the childhood, the how did we get
here part of the story. But with Charles Eng,
his origin story feels... less like a tragic
backstory and more like a prelude to a disaster.
He wasn't a kid born into poverty fighting for
scraps, was he? No, far from it. And that's what
makes his profile so interesting compared to,
say, a Richard Ramirez or even a Manson family
member, you know, people who came from the absolute
fringes of society. Charles Angborn, Ang Chee
Tat, was born in 1960 in British Hong Kong. And
his father was a very wealthy executive. They
had money. They had status. So on paper, he's
set up for success. You know, international city,
wealthy parents. The world's his oyster. On paper,
yes. But inside the house, the dynamic was. It
was volatile. Reports suggest his father was
incredibly harsh. We're talking strict discipline
that really crossed the line into physical abuse.
Wow. Eng was the only son, the youngest of three
children. And in traditional Chinese families
of that era and that kind of status, the pressure
on... The only son to succeed to carry on the
family name is just Ansel. And if you don't meet
those expectations. You become the black sheep.
And N didn't just fail to meet expectations.
He actively rebelled against them in a very specific
and I think telling way. He became what everyone
described as a troubled loner. He was expelled
from multiple schools in Hong Kong. And here
is the trait that defines his entire life. Right
up until the very bitter end, he started stealing.
At 15, right, he gets arrested for shoplifting.
Yes. And we have to analyze his behavior for
a second. When a wealthy kid steals, it's rarely
about needing the object. He didn't need the
money. It's about the thrill. It's about control.
Or maybe it's a way to embarrass the father who
puts so much pressure on him. It's passive -aggressive
warfare. That's a perfect way to put it. It really
is. So the father. Probably embarrassed and frustrated
and at his wits end pulls the classic move of
the wealthy parent with a problem child. Let's
just ship him off to boarding school. And not
just any boarding school. To England specifically.
Bentham Grammar School in North Yorkshire. A
complete change of scenery. Rural, structured,
you know, classic British discipline. It's the
geographic cure. The idea that if you just move
a troubled person to a new place, all the trouble
disappears with them. I'm guessing the trouble
did not disappear. The trouble accelerated. He
hadn't been there very long at all before he
was caught stealing from other students. He was
expelled almost immediately. So he just bounces
back to Hong Kong. What happens then? He does.
And then in 1978, he somehow manages to get a
student visa for the United States. He lands
in Belmont, California at the College of Notre
Dame to study biology. Biology. That implies
a level of, I don't know, academic focus that
I just wouldn't expect from a guy getting kicked
out of schools left and right. He was intelligent.
That's the scary part here. He wasn't drifting
because he's incapable. He was drifting because
he was disordered. But true to form, he dropped
out after just one semester. And then again,
true to form, he gets involved in a hit and run
accident. Now she's facing prosecution in the
U .S. He's a foreign national. This is the point
where he should have been deported and just disappeared
from American history entirely. But he doesn't
leave. He doubles down. He joins the U .S. Marine
Corps. And I have to pause here because this
has always baffled me. How does a foreign national
with a criminal record and a pending hit and
run charge just walk into a recruitment office
and sign up for the Marines? It speaks to two
things, I think. The recruitment standards of
1979, which were maybe a little different than
they are today. A little looser, yeah. And Charles
Nang's incredible ability to lie with a completely
straight face. He used false documents. He claimed
he was born in Bloomington, Indiana. Bloomington,
Indiana. Of all places, why there? It's so wholesome,
right? It's the heartland. It sounds completely
innocuous. Who's going to check the birth records
of some random guy claiming to be from Bloomington?
He listed in October 1979. And for a brief moment,
he's in the system. He's a Marine. Does the structure
help him at all? Does the Marine Corps, you know,
straighten him out? For a normal person with
discipline issues, maybe it would have. But for
a kleptomaniac with what we'd later see as sociopathic
tendencies, no, not at all. He was stationed
at Kaneohe Bay in Hawaii. Okay. And the stealing
escalated from petty to major federal felony
very, very quickly. He wasn't stealing candy
bars from the PX anymore. He was stealing automatic
weapons from the base armory. Whoa. Okay, that
is a massive escalation. That's not, I want this
item. That's, I am preparing for something. Or
maybe he just saw the value in black market arms.
It could be profit. But given who he meets later,
it really suggests a fascination with power.
with firepower he was caught of course military
police arrested him and this is the real turning
point this is where it all goes wrong or i guess
more wrong facing a court -martial he escapes
custody in 1980 he literally breaks out and flees
back to northern california and this is where
the timeline gets really dark because up until
now ang is a criminal he's a nuisance he's a
thief but he hasn't killed anyone that we know
of he's a drifter and in the ecosystem of 1980s
california The drifter found his predator. Or
rather, his partner. His partner. He meets Leonard
Lake. We need to set the scene for Northern California
in the early 80s. It wasn't just, you know, hippies
and tech startups yet. In the rural areas, up
in the foothills, there was a very strong, very
paranoid survivalist movement. Right. The Cold
War was still a very real thing. Oh, it was freezing
hot. People were building bunkers, stockpiling
food and weapons, preparing for nuclear winter
or some kind of massive social collapse. And
Leonard Lake was the poster child for this whole
movement, wasn't he? Leonard Lake was a Vietnam
veteran. Highly intelligent, but deeply, deeply
disturbed. By the time Aang meets him, Lake is
already living way out on the edge. He's paranoid.
He believes the end is coming. He's obsessed
with the idea of a new world order where he's
the one in charge. So you have Lake. He's older,
charismatic in this really dark way. He has the
infrastructure, the guns, the bunker mentality.
And then you have Aang, younger. drifting maybe
looking for a father figure but also hating authority
and obsessed with weapons it's like it's like
two chemicals mixing in a beaker it's a classic
folia do a madness of two and usually in these
pairings you have a dominant personality and
a submissive one think brady and henley or the
dc snipers lake was the architect He had the
philosophy, the grand vision. Eng was the instrument.
He had the rage. But they didn't start killing
immediately, though. They had a run -in with
the feds first, didn't they? They did. In 1982,
they were living together in a mobile home in
Ukiah. The FBI raided it, not for murder, but
for illegal weapons. Okay. Lake jumped bail and
ran to this remote cabin in Willsieville. Ang
was caught. He was sent back to the Marines.
And he actually served time. He did 18 months
at Leavenworth. So he's in a military prison.
He has a year and a half to think about his life.
He gets out in 1984, dishonorably discharged.
He could go anywhere in the world. He could go
back to Hong Kong. He could go to New York. He
could start over. But he goes right back to that
cabin. He goes back to the darkness. And when
he gets back to Willsieville, he finds that Leonard
Lake has been very, very busy. This wasn't just
a cabin in the woods anymore. Lake had convinced
his ex -wife, a woman named Clarilyn Balazs,
to let him stay on her property there. Okay.
And next to the cabin, he had built a cinder
block structure, a bunker. This is the infamous
dungeon we always hear about. Lake called it
that in his own journals. And this is where we
have to talk about the book, The Collector. The
novel by John Fowles? Yes. Published back in
1963. Have you read it? I haven't, but I know
the basic premise. A guy wins the lottery, buys
a big house, and kidnaps a girl he's obsessed
with. It's even darker than that. The protagonist,
Frederick Clegg, is this lonely, socially awkward
man who collects butterflies. He captures them,
he pins them, he preserves their beauty, and
he becomes obsessed with an art student named
Miranda. Right. He decides that if he captures
her and keeps her in his cellar, just like one
of his butterflies, she will eventually see his
true worth. and she'll fall in love with them.
It's a complete fantasy of possession. It's not
really about sex necessarily. It's about ownership,
control. Exactly. And Leonard Lake treated this
novel not as fiction, but as a blueprint, a how
-to guide. He launched what he called in his
journals Operation Miranda. Wow. He wanted to
capture women, keep them in this purpose -built
cell in his bunker, and train them to be his
perfect submissive companions for the post -apocalyptic
world he was sure was coming. It sounds completely
delusional, but he put real engineering and effort
into it. Well, he did. The bunker had a hidden
room behind a sliding shelf inside that was a
tiny windowless cell with just a bucket and a
mattress. He had soundproofing. He had handcuffs.
He had a list of rules typed out for the captives.
And Charles Nang walks into this. He sees the
bunker. He sees the plan. And he doesn't run
screaming. He signs out. He becomes the enforcer.
And this is where the Operation Miranda fantasy
turns into a brutal, horrifying reality. Because
real women aren't characters in a book. They
fight back. They cry. They don't fall in love
with their captors. And when the fantasy failed.
The violence began. The sheer scope of what happened
on that property. It's just hard to wrap your
head around. We're talking about bones found
in burn pits. Police eventually recovered roughly
45 pounds of charred. crushed bone fragments,
45 pounds. Forensics identified a minimum of
11 bodies, but they found maps and journals that
suggested the count could be as high as 25. And
these weren't just random hitchhikers they were
picking up. This is the part of the story that
always gives me chills. They were killing their
neighbors. That's the most brazen part of it
all. The Dubs family. Harvey, Debra, and their
baby, Sean. It's just vanished. Yeah. And their
video equipment ended up in Lake's cabin. Unbelievable.
But even closer, a man named Lonnie Bond. Lonnie
Bond lived 50 yards away from Lake's cabin. 50
yards. You can practically see into their windows
from that distance. You absolutely could. Lonnie
Bond, his girlfriend Brenda O 'Connor, and their
infant son. And a friend of theirs, Robin Scott
Stapley. Lake Enang essentially wiped out the
entire neighboring household to take to property
their cars and, well, the women. The victimology
shows a very clear pattern, doesn't it? The men
and the babies were killed almost instantly.
They were obstacles. Yeah. In Lake's twisted
worldview, the men were competition or they were
threats and the babies were just... They were
disposed of immediately. The women people like
Brenda O 'Connor, Kathy Allen, they were the
targets of Operation Miranda. They were kept
alive. And we know what happened to them, not
just because of the physical evidence, but because
Lake and Eng, they videotaped it. The M -Ladies
tapes. When police excavated the site, they found
these five -gallon buckets buried in the ground.
And inside were Lake's journals. And these videotapes,
these tapes are, I mean, they are generally considered
some of the most disturbing evidence ever shown
in a California courtroom. Because it's not a
movie. It's real -time torture. It is psychological
torture documented for their own pleasure. And
there is a specific sequence on one of those
tapes that just completely destroys any defense
Charles Nang ever tried to mount. What happens?
Nang is seen on camera using a knife to cut the
shirt off of Brenda O 'Connor. Now, you have
to remember, Brenda is his neighbor. He knows
her. Her baby is probably already dead at this
point. Oh, my God. And he says to her, and this
is a direct quote, you can cry and stuff like
the rest of them, but it won't do any good. We
are pretty cold hearted, so to speak. We are
pretty cold hearted. That's the quote that sticks
with everyone. It's so casual. It's so casual.
It's like he's explaining a policy at the DMV.
Sorry, the window is now closed. It completely
dismantles the idea that he was just a victim
or a follower. In the takes, Lake is often the
one lecturing, giving these long pseudo -philosophical
speeches to the women about why they're there.
Right, the grand architect. But Eng, Eng is enjoying
it. He's taunting. He's active. There's a dynamic
where Lake is the director and Eng is the actor,
and he's loving his role. There's another moment
involving a victim named Kathy Allen, right?
Yes. Kathy Allen went to the cabin looking for
her boyfriend, Michael Carroll, who they had.
Of course, already killed. Lake sits her down
and tells her in this calm, monotonous voice
that she is now going to be enslaved, raped and
eventually killed and buried on the property.
He explains it like a business transaction. And
Eng is there for this. Eng is right there reinforcing
it, participating. It's pure, unadulterated horror.
And they were getting away with it. They were
driving the victim's car as they were using their
identities. That's how they moved around. Paul
Cosner, who is a used car seller, he vanished
in November 1984. They took his Honda Prelude.
And they were driving that car around for months.
Which brings us right back to that Sunday in
South San Francisco. June 6th, 1985. They are
driving Paul Cosner's car. The trunk is full
of evidence from God knows how many crimes. And
Charles Eng decides he needs that $75 vice. It's
the arrogance of the psychopath. They had gotten
away with murder literally dozens of times. They
felt invincible. What's a lumber store clerk
to them? Right. So the clerk confronts Eng. Eng
runs. The cops arrive. And who is standing by
the car looking like a deer in headlights? Leonard
Lake. Lake is left holding the bag. The officer
on the scene looks in the trunk of the Honda.
He sees the stolen vice. That's the probable
cause he needs to search. But next to the vice,
a .22 caliber pistol with a homemade silencer
on it. And that's a felony. That's immediate
handcuffs. No questions asked. Lake tries to
bluff his way out of it. He's smooth. He says,
our officer, it's all a misunderstanding. He
hands the officer a driver's license. But the
license is for a man named Robin Scott Stapley.
Their dead neighbor. Their dead neighbor. The
officer, he's looking at this license and he
realizes the white guy in the picture is about
10 years younger and looks absolutely nothing
like the guy standing in front of him. So the
whole story is falling apart. In real time. Then
he checks the license plates on the car. They're
registered to Lonnie Bond, another dead neighbor.
Then he runs the VIN number. The car belongs
to Paul Cosner. It's a convergence of ghosts.
All the people they killed are suddenly present
in that parking lot through their property. Exactly.
Lake is arrested. He's brought to the station.
And this is where the master plan completely
ends. Lake knows what's in the cabin. He knows
the bunker is full of bodies. He knows the tapes
are buried there. He knows it's over. He doesn't
wait for a lawyer. He doesn't try to make a deal.
No. He asks for a glass of water, a piece of
paper, and a pencil. He writes a short note to
his ex -wife. And then he swallows a cyanide
capsule he had sewn into the collar of his shirt.
Wait, he was just walking around with a suicide
pill sewn into his clothes? That is some hardcore
survivalist paranoia right there. It was his
final exit strategy. He had prepared for this
exact moment. He collapsed, went into a coma,
and died four days later on June 6th. He never
spoke a single word to the police. He just checked
out. Leaving Charles and Ang as the sole survivor
of this partnership. And now Ang is on the run.
Ang made it to Lake's ex -wife's house, Claire
Lynn Balazs. Now, her role in all this is extremely
controversial. And we could probably spend an
entire hour just on her. But the short version
is, she drove him to the airport. She helped
him flee. She drives a man wanted in connection
with this unfolding horror show to SFO. She does.
He gets on a plane to Chicago under the alias
Mike Komodo. From there, he goes to Detroit.
And then he crosses the border into Canada. And
this is where the story should have shifted into
a cold case file. He's in Canada. It's 1985.
There's no digital tracking like we have today.
If he just keeps his head down, gets a labor
job, shuts his mouth, he probably never gets
caught. Probably not. But again, you have to
look at the pathology. He is a compulsion -driven
machine. He can't help himself. He settles in
Calgary, Alberta. He's living in a lean -to in
Fish Creek Provincial Park. He's basically homeless,
living on the edge. And a month later, just one
month after the Vice incident, he walks into
a department store. A Hudson's Bay department
store. A famous Canadian chain. And he tries
to steal a can of salmon. A can of salmon. I
mean, he's an international fugitive from a multiple
homicide investigation, and he's risking it all
for a $3 can of fish. It defies all logic, but
it fits the profile perfectly. The security guards
spot him. This time, though, Eng doesn't just
run. He pulls a gun. He shoots one of the guards,
a man named Sean Doyle, in the hand. A scuffle
ensues, and he is finally tackled and arrested.
And just like that, the global manhunt ends in
the cam goods aisle of a department store. The
Calgary police run his prints. They realize who
they have, and the authorities down in California
breathe this huge sigh of relief. We got him.
Send him back. But Canada doesn't just put him
on a plane and send him back, do they? This is
where the story shifts from a crime thriller
to a legal drama. And honestly, this part is
almost more frustrating than the crimes themselves.
It begins a six -year extradition battle. You
have to understand the legal landscape here.
Canada had abolished the death penalty back in
1976. The United States, and specifically California,
was very, very eager to execute Charles Nang.
So Canada's position is, we aren't sending him
back to be put to death. Essentially, yes. Eng's
lawyers argued that under the Canadian Charter
of Rights and Freedoms, specifically Section
7, extraditing a person to a jurisdiction where
they face execution is a violation of fundamental
justice. That seems like a massive loophole for
a serial killer. You know, I'll just commit my
crimes and hop across the border and I'm safe
from the chair. That was exactly the fear. And
that was the argument California was making.
The prosecutors were furious. They refused to
waive the death penalty. They said, this man
killed at least 11 people in our state. We determined
the punishment, not Canada. It became a huge
sovereignty issue. Meanwhile, Eng is just sitting
in a Canadian jail, probably studying law books
and enjoying the delay. He was. He fought it
every single step of the way. Habeas corpus petitions,
appeals to the Alberta Court of Appeal. It just
dragged on and on from 1985 all the way to 1991.
Six years. Six years where the families of the
victims are just waiting in limbo. Finally, the
case reaches the Supreme Court of Canada. The
case is reference. Ray Eng extradition. And it
was incredibly close. The court ruled four to
three. Four to three. That is a razor thin margin.
That could have gone the other way so easily.
It was. But the majority ruled that extradition
would not violate the charter in this case, primarily
because Eng was a fugitive who sought refuge
there, not a Canadian citizen being sent away.
They basically said, we don't like the death
penalty, but we also don't want to be a safe
haven for America's mass murderers. And once
that ruling came down, I've heard the Canadians
did not hesitate. Oh, absolutely not. There's
a story from one of the prosecutors involved
who said that within 18 minutes of the Supreme
Court ruling being announced, Charles Nang was
on a U .S. military plane. They had the engines
running on the tarmac. They wanted him out of
their country. So 1991, he finally lands back
in California. We're ready for trial. Justice
is served, right? Finally. Size. If only. If
you thought the Canadian delay was bad, welcome
to the California legal system of the 1990s.
The pretrial phase for Charles Ang lasted another
seven years. Seven years. How do you delay a
trial for seven years when the evidence is literally
on videotape? You weaponize the system against
itself. Charles Ang decided that if he couldn't
be free, he would be a complete and utter nightmare
for the state of California. He engaged in what
I call paper terrorism. Walk us through this.
What exactly did he do? First, he went through
lawyers like they were tissues. He went through
10 different court -appointed attorneys. He would
work with them for six months or so. Then he'd
fire them, claim they were incompetent, and then
he would sue them for malpractice. And every
time he gets a new lawyer, the clock completely
resets because the new lawyer has to read thousands
and thousands of pages of evidence from scratch.
Precisely. It's a brilliant delay tactic. Then,
when he wasn't firing his lawyers, he was filing
endless motions about his prison conditions.
He sued over the food temperature. He sued because
he wanted stronger reading glasses. And the most
infamous one. He filed a formal legal complaint.
asserting his constitutional right to practice
origami in his cell. Origami. Paper folding.
You are not serious. 100%. He argued that denying
him the paper to fold cranes was a violation
of his rights. All while, by the way, he was
also being caught hiding escape maps and fake
IDs in his cell at Folsom Prison. So the prison
would clamp down and then he'd sue them for clamping
down. It sounds completely absurd, but it's actually
a very effective strategy to just exhaust the
other side. It worked. The judge, at his wit's
end, eventually allowed Nang to represent himself.
That added another year of delays while he researched
his own case. The trial didn't actually start
until late 1998, 13 years after the crimes were
discovered. And the cost. I mentioned $20 million
earlier. That sounds like a made -up number.
That was the official estimate at the time. It
was the most expensive trial in California history,
surpassing even the O .J. Simpson trial. And
O .J. had a... dream team of high -priced private
lawyers. Eng was costing the state that money.
The security, the transport, the public defenders,
the court costs, housing witnesses for years.
It bled the system completely dry. But finally,
in 1998, they are in a courtroom in Orange County.
The venue was changed because he, I assume, couldn't
get a fair trial in Northern California. Correct.
And the prosecution's case was, as you'd expect,
overwhelming. They had the bones, they had the
victim's items from the cabin, they had the murder
weapon, and of course they had the tapes. So
the defense strategy was, predictably, it was
all Leonard Lake's fault. The dependent personality
defense, they brought in psychiatric experts
to say that Charles Ng was a psychological infant,
that he was totally dominated by the charismatic,
evil Leonard Lake. They argued he was just mirroring
Lake to survive. The whole defense was, I just
did what Daddy Lake told me to do. Which brings
us right back to the video tapes, because if
you watch those tapes, that whole defense just...
It evaporates in seconds. It does. But Nang made
a fatal egotistical error. He insisted on taking
the stand in his own defense. Always a bad idea
in a murder trial, especially this one. A terrible
idea. But by taking the stand, he opened the
door for the prosecution to introduce evidence
they had been holding back, specifically a series
of cartoons. Cartoons he drew? Yes. While he
was delaying the trial for all those years, sitting
in his cell, He was drawing these little cartoons,
stick thighs and caricatures, and they weren't
funny. They were depictions of his victims. He
drew them hanging on the wall of his cell like
trophies. He was drawing the people he killed.
It showed the jury, in the most graphic way possible,
that he wasn't traumatized by the memories. He
was reveling in them. He was keeping his victims
as trophies in his mind. It just destroyed the
scared little victim narrative instantly. And
there was the jury tampering incident, too. This
story just gets crazier. Brass and disbelief.
It's like a bad movie script. Eng somehow, from
prison, managed to get the home phone number
of one of the jurors. And he called her. At home.
From jail. What was the goal there? Intimidation.
Bribes. To cause a mistrial. He knew that if
a juror is contacted by the defendant, the whole
trial usually has to be scrapped and restarted
from zero. He wanted to reset the clock again,
go for another few years of delays. Did it work?
Please tell me it didn't work. No, it didn't
work. The judge was absolutely furious. He refused
to declare a mistrial. Instead, he ordered a
metal cage, a literal cage, to be built inside
the courtroom. During recesses and breaks, Eng
was locked in the cage so he couldn't pass notes
or try to make any more calls. A cage in the
courtroom. So finally, after four months of this
testimony, the jury gets the case. It took them
a while. Several weeks of deliberation, actually.
They're very thorough. But on February 24th,
1999, the verdicts came down. Guilty. Guilty
on 11 counts of first -degree murder. The Dubs
family, the Bond family, Stapley, O 'Connor,
all of them. But he was acquitted on one count,
wasn't he? Yes. The murder of Paul Cosner. That
seems strange to me. He was driving Cosner's
car. He had all of Cosner's property. Why an
acquittal on the murder charge itself? Because
they never found Paul Cosner's body. The jury
felt that while Eng clearly stole the car and
was involved in his disappearance, the lack of
a body created just enough reasonable bid out
regarding the specific act of homicide for that
one single count. It was a very rigorous jury.
They didn't just rubber stamp everything the
prosecution wanted. So we move to the sentencing
phase. The jury recommends death. The judge agrees.
And the judge, John Ryan, had a quote that I
think summarizes the whole dependent personality
debate perfectly. He did. He looked directly
at Eng during sentencing and said, Mr. Eng was
not under any duress, nor does the evidence support
that he was under the domination of Leonard Lake.
He validated what everyone saw in those tapes.
This was a partnership of equals and evil. So
1999, he gets the death penalty. It is now 2026.
Charles Nang is still alive. He is. He's in his
mid -60s now. He resides on death row at either
the California Medical Facility or San Quentin,
depending on where they move him for medical
needs. Why? I mean, people listening might be
asking, what was the point of the $20 million
in the six -year extradition battle if he's just
going to sit there for 30 years? And that's a
fair question. It's really about California politics.
There hasn't been an execution in the state of
California since 2006. Governor Gavin Newsom
has placed a moratorium on the death penalty.
So the entire death row population is essentially
just aging out. Charles Ng will almost certainly
die of natural causes before he ever faces lethal
injection. It feels anticlimactic after everything.
It is. But that's the reality of the system.
I think for the people involved, the victory
wasn't the execution. The victory was stopping
him. taking them off the board permanently. And
giving the families an answer, even if it took
14 years to get one. Yes, although we have to
remember the mystery that remains. We mentioned
the 25 potential victims. There are still families
out there. People whose loved ones disappeared
in the Sierra foothills in 1984 or 85 who never
got a phone call. Right. There are likely bodies
out there in those woods that were never found.
That's a heavy thought. The map they found in
the bunker. It was never fully decoded, was it?
No, not completely. Some of the marks on the
map matched the burial sites the bodies they
found. Other marks pointed to locations where
they dug and found absolutely nothing. Whether
the bodies were moved or just fully decomposed,
or if the marks were just Lake's fantasies, we
will never know. Ning certainly isn't talking.
You know, throughout this entire deep dive, I
just keep coming back to the vice. The sheer
pointless stupidity of it. It's the banality
of evil in its purest, most undiluted form. But
I also think about the partnership. You mentioned
the folly I do. I want to leave our listeners
with a question about that. We like to think
of evil as this solitary thing, you know, the
lone wolf killer. But this case shows that evil
can be amplified by company. It's the chemical
reaction. On his own, Leonard Lake might have
just been a paranoid guy in a bunker who eventually
died of a heart attack at 60. And on his own,
Charles Ning might have just been a lifelong
thief and a con artist who died in prison for
robbery. But put them together. You get a death
machine. A prolific killing team. It makes you
wonder how many other potential monsters are
just walking around dormant, waiting for the
right, or I guess... the wrong partner to unlock
the absolute worst version of themselves. That
is a terrifying thought, isn't it? The idea that
any one of us might be one introduction away
from becoming a monster or a victim. On that
uplifting note, this has been the deep dive on
Charles Vang. It's a story of a stolen vice,
a can of salmon, and the darkness that hides
in the California hills. And a reminder that
sometimes the only thing that stops a truly genius
criminal is his own compulsion to break the smallest
rules. Thanks for listening. We'll catch you
on the next one. Stay safe out there.