Leung Ying

Leung Ying
梁穎
Leung Ying, pictured shortly after his arrest[2]
Born	Leung Ying c. 1899 British Hong Kong
Died	October 22, 1928 (aged 29) San Quentin Prison, San Quentin, California, U.S.
Cause of death	Suicide by hanging
Other names	Loy Yeung Wong Gay Lim Onn
Occupation(s)	Fruit picker Cook
Criminal status	Deceased
Conviction(s)	First degree murder
Criminal penalty	Death
Details
Date	August 22, 1928
Country	United States
Location(s)	Rockville, California
Target(s)	Bryan ranch residents
Killed	11 (2 by axe, 9 by gunfire)
Injured	4
Weapons	Hatchet .25-35 Winchester 1894 lever-action rifle[1]

Leung Ying (also known as Loy Yeung) was a Chinese mass murderer who killed 11 people on a farm near Fairfield, California, on August 22, 1928, before escaping the scene. He was arrested by police the next day and sentenced to death on August 31. Leung killed himself in his prison cell on October 22, about two weeks before his set execution date.

This was the worst case of mass murder in California history at that time, surpassing the killing of six persons each by James Dunham on a farm in Santa Clara County in 1896, and by John Goins in Stockton and Galt in 1926.^[3][4]

Leung, who also went by the names Wong Gay and Lim Onn,^[3] had been arrested by San Francisco police in 1924 as a gunman and narcotics peddler. He had a reputation as a killer, boasting he had killed three people in a tong war, and was generally regarded as a "bad" person.^[1]

For some time he lived in San Jose, working there at a local packing plant before moving to Oakland.^[4] He was a member of the Hop Sing Tong, until he was expelled due to his excessive use of narcotics.^[3] Reports directly after the killings described contradictory ages for Leung, typically as 32 years old, and once as 35,^[4][5] but the majority of articles after his arrest give his age as 29.

In the spring of 1928, he was employed for about three months as a cook and fruit picker at the Bryan ranch in unincorporated Solano County, near Rockville,^[6] five miles from Fairfield. The Bryan ranch was run by Wong Gee (also known as Wong Fook Hong), who had a forty-year lease on the property and was previously a foreman at the A.T. Hatch ranch in Suisun Valley.^[7][8] Leung was eventually dismissed in June for attacking and attempting to rape Wong Gee's daughter Nellie, though he would later claim that it was a consensual affair. Leung repeatedly tried to reapply for a job at the ranch, but was turned down each time.^[9]

On September 15, 1937, eleven months prior to Leung Ying's attack, another Chinese worker, 38-year-old Jung Lee Fong, had run amok on the Bryan ranch with an axe and set fire to two buildings, before he was shot by Wong Gee.^[8][10] Wong was released the next day and the killing was later declared an act of self-defense by the superior court.^[11][12]

In the morning hours of August 22, 1928, Leung, armed with a rifle (also described as a sawn-off shotgun)^[13] a hatchet, and under the influence of opium,^[12] returned to the ranch and attacked the residents and workers there.

According to reports, Leung first entered what was variously identified as an underground gambling room, or a dugout, where Wong Gee was reportedly smoking an opium pipe before he was about to wake two farm hands.^[1][11] He shot Wong Gee through the heart and also killed worker Cheung Yueng. Both were later found by police lying fully dressed on a bed. The other farm laborer, Wa Wey, was fatally wounded by a shot in the back, as he fled.^[11]

Next the killer went to the laundry house, where Wong Gee's brother, Wong Hueng, lived. Leung could not enter as the occupant had locked himself inside and attempted to hide under a bed, but Leung shot through a window, hitting his victim in the abdomen. Leung then made his way to the cutting shed, which was the home of the ranch's cook, Low Shek, who was wounded by a shot through the stomach. Low Shek was later taken to Fairfield hospital, where he died a few hours later.^[14] While walking half a mile through a pear orchard towards the home of Wong Gee, Leung shot and killed worker Yeung Soon. Another worker was able to escape the shooting and called police.^[4]

At the house's porch, Leung shot fifteen-year-old Nellie Wong in the abdomen as she was walking down some steps to go to school in Rockville. Shortly after he entered the home, Wong Gee's wife, cradling her ten-day old son, appeared in the doorway. Leung killed her with a shot between the eyes. Afterwards, Leung walked into the children's room, where Wong Gee's sons, four-year-old Johnnie and three-year-old Willie, were asleep in beds. Johnnie was shot through the head at close range while Willie died of cranial injuries when Leung crushed his skull with either his axe or a cleaver from the kitchen. Before leaving the house, Leung mutilated Mrs. Wong's body with the hatchet, then turned her over to fatally slash the baby's throat, nearly decapitating him. Two of Wong Gee's other children, Ruth and Helen, escaped unharmed by hiding under a bed.^[1][15] Nellie died in Vallejo hospital on August 27, becoming Leung Ying's eleventh and final victim.^[16]

Leung Ying eventually escaped in an automobile owned by Wong Gee, heading in the direction of Sacramento.^[17] In less than twenty minutes he had killed or fatally wounded eleven people.^[18][19] A manhunt, led by Solano County Sheriff John R. Thornton, was conducted in Solano and Napa Counties, heavily patrolling the section of I-80 E between Fairfield and Sacramento. The perpetrator's identity was disputed for several hours following the killings.^[20][21] The name of the manhunt's subject was frequently misspelled, leading to news reports misnaming Leung Ying as Leung Wing,^[4] Leung Ling,^[22] Ming Ying,^[18] and Loy Yeung, which became the most widespread name for Leung.

The next day, Leung broke into the house of George Sing and forced him at gunpoint to chaffeur him to the Chinatown area of Nevada City, where he had a brother.^[3] After finding out about the search effort, Leung had Sing drive back, stealing food from Sing's house before fleeing towards the nearby Empire mine, abandoning his car and rifle.^[23] Sing reported the encounter to police and through the hint, Leung was captured by Nevada County Sheriff George Carter and Deputy Sheriff Arthur Hellings, while sleeping in the chicken coop of an abandoned ranch near Grass Valley. He was taken to Nevada City, where he was held until the arrival of the Fairfield authorities.^[3][24] A search of his person yielded "a small black bag, a quantity of Chinese cake, some trinkets and about $100 (equivalent to $1,774 in 2023) in money".^[3]

Nine victims died at the scene, a tenth died the same day at a hospital while the eleventh victim died five days later.^[25][26] Four of the dead, including Wong Gee, were members of the Hong San tong,^[27] although one source mistakenly names it the more well-known Bing Kong Tong; the same article claims Leung Ying, a former Hop Sing Tong member, was also part of the organisation, despite the Hop Sing Tong and Bing Kong Tong being rivals at the time.^[28] One source connects victims Low Shek (named as Low Chuck Way) and Wa Wey (named as Jim Low) as father and son.^[22] One of the injured workers was identified as Gee Fop.^[18]

The names and ages of the deceased, particularly those of the four laborers, were reported inconsistently across the press. The workers were also named as Chaim Im, Wong Foon, Jim Low, and Low Chuck Way,^[22] or Phan Gyim, Young Moon, Wah Toy, and Way Wing,^[18] or Chew Yue, Yong Fong, Won Fin Fong, and Low Check.^[29]

Initially, Leung demanded he be given "the needle" before he would confess.^[3] During his interrogation Leung readily admitted to having committed the murders, and stated that he had seen the two police officers trailing him during the night, and, although he had the opportunity to shoot them at any time, he refrained from doing so, because he feared he would be hanged, if he killed a white man. Asked for the motive behind his rampage, Leung initially recited the story of his love for Nellie Wong and the disapproval of this relationship by her family. Furthermore, he claimed that the Wong Gee family tried to kill him with poisoned cake, so he killed them first.^[30][31] In interviews with the press, however, he instead stated that incessant teasing about his lack of intelligence and physical appearance (Leung was of below average height and had deep pockmark scars on his face, likely from smallpox) had pushed him to commit the murders.^[32] He also expressed his admiration for Californian robbers and murderers Joe Tanko and Floyd Hall, saying: "I just like Tanko and Hall – very, very sick."^[9] Initial media speculated that the murders were gang violence related to the Tong Wars, which was dismissed by police, who instead blamed Leung's drug use resulting in mental instability.^[1][33]

The night after his arrest Leung Ying attempted to hang himself with a blanket. This reportedly occurred after hundreds of Hong San delegates congregated around the jail, demanding to be granted access to Leung. Prison guards were alerted by the sound of running water, which Leung had turned to muffle his death throes.^[27] After the attempt was foiled, he spent the night beating his head against the floor and walls, crying for narcotics.^[34] The next day, on August 24, Leung was arraigned at the Superior Court in Suisun City, where again he admitted committing the murders, stating he wished he had the opportunity to kill half a dozen more.^[35] While in Solano County jail, Leung attempted to convince a guard to temporarily release him, stating that his only regret was that he had not yet killed "a certain elderly Chinese woman" and would return should he be allowed to commit the deed.^[13]

Leung's trial began on August 30 and was described as one of the shortest formal murder trials in state history.^[5] Leung declined his right to an attorney and immediately pleaded guilty. On August 31, 1928, less than 24 hours later, he was sentenced to death by hanging, with Leung reportedly laughing uproariously at the verdict.^[36] His execution was to take place on November 9 of the same year;^[37] Leung was set to be hanged alongside three others, which would have made it the first time four executions were held on the same day at San Quentin Prison.^[38]

On October 22, 1928, after six weeks on death row, Leung killed himself in his prison cell in San Quentin Prison by hanging himself with a towel, between 9 p.m. and 11 p.m. Leung's cellmate, Leong Soock (also erroneously spelled as Leon Fook and Lee Sook), did not alert the correctional staff.^[39][40] Leung was buried in San Quentin prison cemetery, where Ying was used as his last name.^[36]

Although the killings were widely publicized in its immediate aftermath, the event became disregarded as its effects were confined to the Chinese community, which faced considerable ostracization. Closer coverage lasted only a week, ending with Leung Ying's death sentence. His death went largely unnoticed, as his name was again misspelled, this time as "Leong Ying", in all contemporary reports.^[40]

Two days after the murders, a funeral procession was held in Suisun City for six of the deceased, the Wong family (the unnamed infant was buried with his mother and Nellie Wong had not yet died by this point) and one of the elder workers, identified as Young Gum Foon. The rites used a mix of Buddhist, Chinese folk religion and Christian burial traditions. The dead were initially buried in a mass grave, the aforementioned six in coffins, in Rockville Cemetery before the Tung Sen Benevolent Association of San Francisco exhumed the bodies and reburied them at a Chinese cemetery in Colma.^[13]

The December 1985 issue of the Solano Historian magazine published a June 2, 1981 speech to the California Historical Society by journalist Evelyn Lockie, who was a resident of Rockville and involved with its Chinatown community in the 1920s. Lockie was familiar with the family of Wong Gee, who was a friend of her father and traveled to the scene of the Bryan ranch murders as part of job at The Sacramento Bee, unaware of who the victims were until the deputy in charge mentioned their names. Lockie wrote a speech to commemorate the killings over fifty years after the murders to call for a memorial to the victims as well as Rockville's now-largely abandoned Chinatown.^[7][13]

• Lockie, Evelyn: The Village That Vanished in Solano Historian, December 1985.
• Waters, Tony: When killing is a crime; Lynne Rienner Publishers Inc, 2007. ISBN 978-1-58826-514-2
• Solano's Sheriff – Jack Thornton Makes Record in Capturing Murderous Chinese Gunman, in Douglas 20 Police Journal; October 1928 (p. 8).
• [1]; Leung, Peter C.Y. and Waters, Tony "Chinese Pioneer Farming Families in the Suisun Valley of California, " in 150 Year of Chinese Presence in California, published by the Sacramento Chinese Cultural Foundation and Asian-American Studies, University of California, Davis 2001.
• Chaddock, Don: Cemetery Tales: Ying and Young, California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, October 27, 2022 (includes mugshot)

• Chinese community falls apart after mass murder, Daily Republic (March 23, 2001)
• Eleven Chinese, Time (September 3, 1928)
• Runs amuck and kills 10, The New York Times (August 23, 1928)
• Capture California Chinese Killer, The New York Times (August 24, 1928)
• Chinaman runs amuck; 10 dead, The Atlanta Constitution (August 23, 1928)
• Chinese slayer of ten caught in chicken house, The Atlanta Constitution (August 24, 1928)
• Chinese massacres ten, Los Angeles Times (August 23, 1928)
• Chinese Cook Slays Nine Persons, Wounds 6 Others With Rifle and Hatchet, The Hartford Courant (August 23, 1928)
• Chinese, Who Killed 10, Sought 6 More Lives, The Washington Post (August 25, 1928)
• Chinese cook goes on rampage and kills 9, Eugene Register-Guard (August 22, 1928)
• Chinese killer of 10 is terror to countryside, Miami Daily News (August 23, 1928)
• Slayer of ten, The Pittsburgh Press (August 28, 1928)
• Murderer of Ten - And Victims, San Jose News (August 23, 1928)
• Crazed Chinaman slays 10 persons, The Ludington Daily News (August 23, 1928)
• Chinese slayer is sought by posses, The Owosso Argus-Press (August 23, 1928)
• Slayer of Ten, The Border Cities Star (August 30, 1928)
• Ten Chinese dead when worker runs amok with pistol, The Palm Beach Post (August 23, 1928)
• Maniac who murdered ten persons caught by police, The Evening Independent (August 24, 1928)