Rurik Jutting seemed to have it all.
He was a young, intelligent British banker earning half a million dollars a year, in the teeming metropolis of Hong Kong.
Jutting was also overweight, perpetually intoxicated and increasingly depraved.
On a balmy October evening in 2014, Jutting returned home with a 23-year-old Indonesian woman he’d met via Craigslist.
Eight days later, she was found dead in his upscale apartment, her body stuffed in a suitcase on the balcony. Another Indonesian woman lay dead with her throat slit on the floor, which was covered in blood, cocaine and torture devices.
“(These are) the narcissistic ramblings of Rurik Jutting, of the Bank of America, Merrill Lynch, newly soon to be unemployed and now a rapist and a murderer,” he said in one of the many drug-fuelled, manic videos he made on his iPhone over the course of that shocking week.
Jutting, now 31, has been found guilty of two counts of murder in Hong Kong’s High Court. He will serve two concurrent life sentences.
Although the major facts of the case were agreed by both sides, Jutting had pleaded not guilty to murder, claiming diminished responsibility, saying his psychological issues affected his judgment at the time of the killings
The following account is based on court documents and evidence and testimony given to the jury.
Cocaine, vodka and porn
“He is almost boasting about what he has done” — Dr Richard Latham, forensic psychiatrist, at Jutting’s trial
In October 2014, Jutting lived in an expensive, stylish apartment in the heart of Hong Kong’s Wan Chai, a busy commercial and residential area that’s home to the city’s red-light district.
Like most Hong Kong apartments, it was small — just one bedroom, a toilet and a living area with open kitchen — but rent wasn’t cheap, more than HK$20,000 (US$2,580) a month.
It was also a mess, just like its then-occupant’s life. By 2014, Jutting would later tell psychiatrists in prison, he was drinking up to two bottles of spirits every day, on top of several cans of the energy drink Red Bull.
He told them he was using cocaine regularly — up to 10 grams in a 24-hour period — and spending large sums of money on prostitutes, especially ones who were submissive.
His mother had named him Rurik, meaning “great one, special one,” and when he left the UK in 2013 he seemed likely to live up to it.
But by the time he arrived in Hong Kong in 2013 everything was going downhill.
He didn’t have a girlfriend, or any long-term friendships and his job was on the rocks after he was moved within the bank in 2012 when his section was deemed a “serious risk” due to “a violation of regulations,” the court heard.
“(He was) boastful, had a high opinion of himself (but it was) a thin shell that can be broken. Underneath he can feel pain and despair, had a fragile sense of self-esteem,” forensic psychiatrist Dr Richard Latham told the jury.
Latham diagnosed Jutting with a narcissistic personality disorder — he didn’t feel empathy like normal people — and determined that he was developing into a sexual sadist.
Sumarti
“She was a really, really nice person,” Jutting in an iPhone video after the murder
Sumarti Ningsih, known as Alice, did not want to go home with Jutting when he contacted her on October 25.
They’d had sex for money before, after Jutting found her listing on Craigslist. That time, Jutting told police, he had been rough with her — he held her down, used sex toys on her.
Feeling uncomfortable, she asked to leave early, even though it meant she had to pay back half the money. He had agreed.
“(It was) the first time I got sexual satisfaction from hurting another person,” he would tell police.
Ningsih first arrived in Hong Kong in 2011 to be a domestic helper, working for subsistence wages as maids and child minders for Hong Kong’s families like tens of thousands of other Indonesian and Filipina women.
Ningsih had a young son of her own, living in Indonesia with her family. He was just five years old when he lost his mother.
Her cousin, who asked not to be named out of concerns for her privacy, told CNN she’d been like a big sister to her.
They left together for Hong Kong to make a better life for themselves. “We wanted to make a change, wanted a better life, and to help our family,” she said.
The same cousin would later be called to identify her body.
Her mother told CNN Indonesia last month she had been the family’s breadwinner. “I’ve lost my child and I won’t see her again,” she said.
In 2014, after a brief return to Indonesia, Ningsih flew back to Hong Kong on a tourist visa.
When Jutting contacted her on October 25, the Indonesian woman was very reluctant to see him.
She hadn’t forgotten his vicious treatment of her last time — and asked if she could bring a friend, according to what Jutting told police.
Jutting refused, offering her as much as HK$10,000 (US$1,290) to spend the night. Eventually she agreed.
Security cameras captured the two entering the J Residence apartment complex at 3.38 a.m. on October 25.
‘We played a bit’
“Why did I kill her?” — Jutting interrogation tape, Hong Kong police, November 2
Jutting couldn’t get an erection after they took cocaine together — he never could when using the drug — so he took a different tack.
“We played a bit,” Jutting told police. “I got rough with her in the course of that — it went from consensual to non-consensual.”
Using purple rope, he tied Ningsih up, sending photos of her to his cocaine dealer.
For three days, in escalating degrees of cruelty, Jutting tortured his captive, telling her he’d kill her if she didn’t cooperate.
He filmed her on his phone as he debased her, in videos so shocking the judge at his trial wouldn’t allow some of them to be shown to the public gallery.
“Do you want me to hit you?” he asked her on the tape. “If you say yes, I’ll hit you once. If you say no, I’ll hit you twice.”
At other times, he goes from asking if she loved him, commending her for being a “good girl”, to threatening her with harsher violence.
In a postmortem examination, the coroner would say there were signs he had clamped her nipples with pliers and whipped her repeatedly with a belt.
In the early hours of Tuesday morning, October 27, Jutting slit her throat, He later told police he had thought about letting her go, in his more lucid moments, but in the end he killed her in the shower, her hands tied behind her back.
‘She was my property’
“My name is Rurik Jutting, about five minutes ago, I just killed, murdered this one … oh s**t”
Less than five minutes after he had killed Ningsih, Jutting was filming himself, flustered and shirtless. He moves the phone from his face to her motionless body on the bathroom floor.
Jutting said he hadn’t planned to kill her. He thought about jumping off the balcony, then and there.
But he couldn’t deny he had enjoyed the torture, the feeling of being in complete control. “She was my property and there to please me,” Jutting spoke into his iPhone camera in one of his first videos after the killing. “Frankly, I am addicted.”
Over the next three days, he takes more cocaine, courtesy of his dealer who was making regular visits to his apartment, and made more videos on his iPhone.
In some he details his plans for further torture and rape, in others he talks about how he is going to go to prison for life. “Don’t think I should watch my videos … I am an ugly fat f**k now. Used to be good looking but now (I’m) an utterly f**ked up loser.”
At one point, he moves Ningsih’s body from the shower, tying it up in cords and wrapping it in sheets before putting it in a suitcase, out on the balcony.
At some stage, he changes his automatic work email message.
“I’m out of the office. Indefinitely. For urgent enquiries, or indeed any enquiries, please contact someone who is not an insane psychopath. For escalation please contact God.”
On October 31, Jutting came up with a plan — he would leave the body in his apartment, block up the doors and then fly back to the UK. He would say goodbye to his parents before going into a police station to hand himself in.
He never booked the tickets though — instead, he went out to buy torture instruments to use on his second victim.
Seneng
“I don’t know why I chose her … she was at that point simply prey” — Jutting in police interviews, November 2
Jutting’s first stop was a sex shop, then on the way home, he stopped off at a hardware store.
Back in his apartment, iPhone recording again, he showed off his haul.
“In this bag we have cord, zip ties, what’s this, oh it’s a big hammer,” Jutting said while recording on his iPhone. He showed off sandpaper, pins, nails and pliers.
Seneng “Jesse” Mujiasih, 26, was working as a waitress at New Makati, a bar in Wan Chai, on that Friday night.
A friend of hers, Wan Chai bar owner Robert Van Dem Bosch, saw her. She told him she was going to have “great night.”
He described her as strong, a “beautiful, happy, good-looking woman.”
“She was trying to make a better life for later, the money she made here, she didn’t throw away on all kinds of things,” he said.
“Maybe make up and nice clothes to look good, but the rest of the money she saved and sent to her home country of Indonesia to build a house,” he told CNN.
She was going to retire to Indonesia, Van Dem Bosch said.
Jutting offered her as much as HK$20,000 (US$2,580) to stay for the weekend. Security cameras captured Jutting ushering his second victim inside the apartment complex just before midnight.
After they entered the apartment she immediately commented how messy it was — he joked she should be his regular cleaner.
She removed her clothes and they sat on the couch — where she saw his makeshift gag, hidden under one of the pillows.
Mujiasih leaped up, shocked, yelling in Bahasa Indonesian, Jutting would later tell the police. In response, he grabbed the knife he’d hidden underneath a cushion and held it to her throat, telling her to shut up or he’d kill her.
She ignored him, continuing to yell for help.
He killed her, shoving the blade down onto her throat.
‘I’m trying to surrender’
“I am just very high on coke and feel zero emotions,” Jutting in iPhone video after second murder
One woman lay dead on the floor of his living room. Another was decaying in a suitcase on the balcony.
His apartment was covered in blood, cocaine and torture tools.
Jutting walked out on the balcony, where he thought he could see people looking at him. He was sure they had called the police.
Looking through the peephole in his apartment door, he saw two police officers outside. He barricaded the door with boxes. Still he could see the door handle moving.
On early November 1, Jutting called the police on his Blackberry. He’d soon hand over his iPhone, including all his recorded videos, for evidence.
“My name is Rurik Jutting, I’m sitting in my flat in Wan Chai. I’m trying to surrender myself to the multiple, I don’t know if they are the police, or army, or special forces around me and I don’t really know what they want me to do,” he told the responder.
The responder had no idea what was happening. There were no police at Jutting’s apartment. He had imagined them. He called the cops on himself.
‘They weren’t sex objects’
“I am sure you will never forget the reality of the horror that those women had to endure” — defense attorney Tim Owen, closing argument
In Hong Kong’s High Court, two years later, Jutting appeared largely composed.
His parents appeared not to have attended the trial, or any family members, but it was packed with journalists, many of whom had been flown half way around the world by the British tabloid media to cover the case of Hong Kong’s “American Psycho” killer.
His appearance shocked those in the public gallery — his once curly hair has been cut short and he had lost a significant amount of weight since 2014.
When his videos of his torture of Ningsih were played to the jury — drawing audible gasps — he closed his eyes.
At other times, especially during his defense, he appeared more animated, chatting to and exchanging notes with his lawyers.
His defense attorney Tim Owen, told the jury their defense of diminished responsibility was “a concession to human frailty.”
“I am not asking you to feel sympathy for Rurik Jutting. I am not asking you to feel sorry for him,” he said in his closing remarks.
“(But by October 2014) Rurik Jutting was about as far from normal as it is possible to be.”
The prosecution attorney, in his summing up, shifted the jury’s attention from Jutting to the two women who had been buried in unremarkable graves in Indonesia, two years before.
“They were living human beings. They weren’t sex objects.”