Jury Returns Open Verdict In Teenage Girl's Death

A jury has reached an open verdict in the death inquest of a teenage girl whose naked body was found drifting in the sea last September.

The jury returned a unanimous verdict after about five hours of deliberation on Friday in the case involving 15-year-old Chan Yin-lam.

The court heard that the five jurors concluded that they could not be sure that the girl had taken a taxi to Lohas Park in Tseung Kwan O on September 19, the day she went missing.

The jurors also said they could not determine where she died, and since the body had decomposed, there was not enough information to decide the cause of death.

Chan's body was found in waters off Yau Tong on September 22.

The jurors also made two recommendations. The first is for the Hospital Authority to improve follow-up checks with young psychiatric patients.

The inquest heard that Chan had suffered behavioural disorders.

The second recommendation made by the jurors is for pathologists to perform diatom tests on the bodies of those believed to have drowned. But an expert had told the hearing that this was not feasible in Hong Kong.

The coroner presiding over the inquest, David Ko, had earlier ruled out “unlawful killing” and “suicide” as the possible cause of death while giving instructions to the jury, saying the evidence available could not lead to those two verdicts beyond any reasonable doubts. He said the jury should consider whether it could have been an accident, or reach an open verdict.

Speculation has been rife about Chan's death, which happened at the height of the anti-extradition protests last year.

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