No Kill, No Thrill: The Shocking True Story of Charles Ng - One of North America's Most Horrific Serial Killers

by Darcy Henton and Greg Owens, Greg Owens

No Kill No Thrill by Darcy Henton and Greg Owens brings to light new information in the Charles Ng serial killer story. People who followed the headlines about mass murderer Ng and his mentor, Leonard Lake, know that Ng was caught in Canada and extradited to the United States. They also know that the Ng case represented the longest, most intricate, and most expensive international investigation and subsequent trial in North American history. What they don’t really know is why. They don’t know the Ng case essentially had to be tried first in Canada, which was initially against extraditing the serial killer to face the death penalty. They don’t know the real story of the jailhouse stool pigeon who provided police with the hard evidence linking Ng to the California murders. Or of Ng’s plans to kill federal prosecutors and scores of witnesses in California. Or of the RCMP officer seconded by the State of California to serve on the Ng task force. This information and other details never before revealed about Charles Ng and the case against him can be found in No Kill No Thrill, the first comprehensive and accurate account of Ng’s homicidal exploits and his efforts to evade justice. No Kill No Thrill is penned by two crime journalists from Canada. It was there that Ng fought extradition for years and there that the police forces of two countries cooperated to build a case compelling enough to see Ng extradited, tried and convicted. Through extensive contacts in both countries, the authors provide the missing pieces of the Ng puzzle. They obtained, for instance, Ng’s prison sketches in which he depicted his crimes. These drawings, never before published, were critical to Ng’s conviction. The pair also reviewed hundreds of notes that Ng and fellow inmate Maurice Laberge passed back and forth while housed in adjoining Canadian prison cells. The notes contain startling revelations about Ng’s character and his attitude toward his victims. California prosecutor Peter Smith contends that Laberge’s evidence was critical to securing multiple murder convictions against Ng. He believes Ng took the stand against his lawyers’ advice to refute Laberge’s allegations, and that act enabled California prosecutors to introduce further incriminating evidence and demonstrate that much of Ng’s evidence was contradictory. In addition to extensively interviewing American investigators in San Francisco and San Andreas, the authors spent countless hours with the Canadian Mountie, Sgt. Raymond Munro, assigned to put together the case for Ng’s extradition hearing. Munro, described in the book as the RCMP’s version of Lt. Columbo, was subsequently seconded by the State of California’s Ng task force to assist in the criminal investigation. Laberge and Munro, and Ng’s sketches and notes, merit only scant lines in previously published books on Ng, if they are mentioned at all. Written in the style of Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood, No Kill No Thrill documents Charles Ng’s and Leonard Lake’s early lives and the traumas that set them on a deadly course. It contains information about Ng’s childhood friends and examines police reports of his early encounters with the law in private schools in Hong Kong and Britain to paint a picture of a sociopath in the making. In addition to documenting a notorious serial murder case, No Kill No Thrill weaves the story of four fascinating characters—Ng, Lake, Munro and Laberge—and how they were drawn together in macabre circumstances.

Genres: True Crime

320 pages, Paperback

First published April 19, 2001

About the author

Greg Owens began a 22-year career in journalism as a crime writer for the Edmonton Journal and went on to co-write an award-winning book, The Third Suspect, about the mass murder of nine miners during a violent strike at a gold mine in Canada’s Northwest Territories. Owens later served as City Editor of the Pacific Daily News in Guam and Metro Editor of the Bradenton Herald in Florida. He and his wife sold their real estate businesses in Florida and moved to Penticton BC where you can find him biking, wine touring and enjoying semi-retirement.

Darcy Henton is an Alberta based journalist and author who has covered justice issues and other stories across Canada for nearly four decades. His award winning investigative reporting broke the story of one of Canada’s largest child sexual abuse cases, helped expose the torture murder of a Somali prisoner by members of the Canadian Airborne and probed the deaths of children in the care of the Alberta government. When he is not at his computer keyboard, he is often cheering on his fav hockey team, the Edmonton Oilers!

Reviews

[Valerity (Val) · Rating 4 out of 5]

I bought this book in June 2006, a few years after it came out in September 2002. It was a neat style book I've only run into a couple of times, a paperback with french flaps. It turned out to also be one of the most frightening true crime books I've ever read and that's saying something. The two guys that were involved in this were truly something else, as far as the crimes that they were involved in, and had further plans for, and ones they may have previously done and never been caught for. It boggles the mind. Because of how they were caught unexpectedly, it left a lot of evidence behind about what they did.

But still, I wondered about how much more could have happened that might not have been recorded or written down. There could be double the wrongdoing and no one would even know, as long as they took care to make sure that they hid the bodies in a totally different place and used a different method, didn't mention it or record it in any way, and didn't leave any survivors.

I've read true crime for several decades and of all the books, I think the mentality behind the crimes in this one scared me the most. They are just so cruel and sadistic. I'm so thankful for that random shoplifting that day that ended it all. I recently saw a show on the Investigation Discovery Channel, I think it was, that did a re-enactment of the case. I found it fascinating to watch so many years after reading it as I'd forgotten so much of it but remembered bit and pieces and some returned to me as I watched. It drove home all over again how bad this duo was, and how much of a fluke it was that the shoplifting triggered the break that outed what was going on and began the ending of it.

[Mike · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is well written. The facts are tediously recounted, and the level of research that went into this is incredible. That being said, this is not the kind of book you expect about these disgusting, heinous crimes. Skirting the typical graphic descriptions and storytelling of some of the crimes, this book takes a more detailed explanation into the lives of all parties involved. This includes victims, the killers, the investigators, victims' families, lawyers, and anyone else who was affected by this event. Though it can be a little lengthy and hard to follow at times, it is a very well explained and detailed telling of the case and all the insane legal hurdles needed to extradite Ng. It shows severe issues in the legal system of both the US and Canada. It is very interesting and upsetting. I do wish the author spent a little more time detailing the murders themselves, but I totally understand and greatly respect the position this book takes.