The main culprit of the case, Henry Chau Hoi-leung, was born on June 7, 1983, and was 29 years old when the case happened. According to Chau's friends, Chau has "lived in his own world" since he was a child. According to his friend who has known him for many years, Chau resented his parents because his parents forced him to learn piano when he was in elementary school. In secondary school, he also failed to keep up with his academic performance due to emotional problems, had difficulty getting along with his classmates, and failed the
Hong Kong Certificate of Education Examination. Later, his parents arranged for Chau to study in
Australia. During this period, he suffered
discrimination and
bullying many times, as well as the experience of "being beaten by
black people every time they saw him". After Chau returned to Hong Kong in 2003, he would not express his thoughts to his friends, and his personality was relatively withdrawn. The second defendant in the case is Angus Tse Chun-kei, who is of
Macanese descent from his father. A friend of his recalled that Tse had a gentle and pure personality, and Tse once dated his sister. Later, Tse went to
New Zealand and met a woman, but was cheated out of money by her. After returning to Hong Kong in 2010, he tried to commit suicide three times at home by burning charcoal, taking rat poison, and swallowing mercury. His sister rescued him when she returned home in time. Because of this, however, he suffered permanent brain damage resulting in cognitive decline and poor memory. Later, Tse's mentality was to "muddle through his days". ==Timeline of events==