At the peak of Hong Kong’s anti-sentencing campaign, a 15-year-old woman, Chen Yanlin, who was once a participant in anti-sentencing demonstrations, was suddenly found naked and floating in the sea on September 22 last year. Many protesters believed that her participation in the demonstration was related to her death, but the police insisted that her death was a suicide, which became one of the biggest unsolved cases in the anti-sentencing storm.
According to several Hong Kong media reports, Chen Yanlin was a student at the Hong Kong Vocational Training Council’s Youth College, and after her body was found at sea, many protesters questioned the police connection because she was an active participant in anti-sentencing demonstrations. The police claimed that the cause of death was undoubtedly suicide, but since there was no CCTV footage at the scene of her death, and since she was an avid swimmer, her body was quickly cremated, leaving too many doubts.
In the interview with the Hong Kong TVB last year, the mother said that she had seen all the surveillance footage that showed that her daughter looked strange, so she believed that her daughter had committed suicide, and she hoped that the case would be known as soon as possible, but her statement also caused many people in Hong Kong to question her.
The BBC reports that over the past year, the case has been hotly debated between the two camps of pro- and anti-sentinel demonstrations, with the pro-establishment camp supporting the “suicide” theory and amplifying the information that Yanlin Chen had been admitted to a girls’ home as a child and attempted suicide, and that she may have suffered from psychosis and used marijuana, while the anti-sentinel camp emphasizes the multiple doubts that exist in the case.
The death of Chen Yanlin made Hong Kong anti-sending demonstrators extremely angry, and strongly demanded that the authorities investigate the cause thoroughly. Over the past year, many events have been held in Hong Kong to commemorate the death of Norman Chen, and a district councilman has planned to name a park after him. In an effort to unravel the mystery, the Hong Kong court heard his death for more than ten days and summoned 31 witnesses to testify, including Chen’s mother, Chen’s ex-boyfriend, social workers, doctors, police officers, medical examiners, and others.
After 11 days of court hearings, Coroner Kao said he asked the jury to exclude the verdicts of “unlawful killing” and “suicide,” explaining that if the cause of death was “unlawful killing,” the jury would have to rule out the verdict of “unlawful killing” and “suicide. “There was no evidence in the case that Yanlin was injured to the point of death, that she had a dispute or grudge against anyone, or that she felt threatened by her activities. In addition, none of the pathology reports indicated that Lin was under the influence of any medication before her death. The “suicide” verdict was also ruled out beyond a reasonable doubt. Although the expert witness suggested that Chen suffered from “oppositional defiant disorder” which might have increased his suicidal tendencies, the events between August 22 and September 19 last year seemed inconsistent with a suicide theory.
The court finally ruled that Chen Yanlin was injured and died between the night of September 19 and 20 last year, but the place and time of his death are unknown, and the cause of death could not be determined due to decomposition of the body, the jury unanimously ruled that the cause of Chen Yanlin’s death was doubtful.
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