The 1928 Lake District Murder: Chung Yi Miao & Wai Sheung Siu
The Lake District. Home to rolling fells, sheep, woodland, water, boats and plenty of tourists, its peaceful landscape seems one of the least likely settings for murder imaginable. When my wife and I recently visited the area and went for a walk near the village of Grasmere, I couldn’t resist mentioning that a notorious murder had once taken place not far from where we were standing. In fact, our hotel room was named after the novelist Hugh Walpole, who lived near Keswick at the time of the case and later attended the trial. It seemed like a sign. My wife was rather less enthusiastic about discussing crime while on holiday, but I already knew this would be the next case I researched when we returned home. I wanted to find out how a happy honeymoon in the Lake District in 1928 had ended in murder. For that, we begin, perhaps surprisingly, in China.
Chung Yi Miao
Chung Yi Miao was born in 1900 in Chekiang, now called Zhejiang, a wealthy coastal province in eastern China. The family, who were Christians, later lived in Shanghai before moving to Hong Kong, then a British colony, amid the unrest and political upheaval that marked the final years of China’s last imperial dynasty. Chung’s father was an affluent government official, and Chung received a good education. He was later sent to Paris to continue his studies, supported by a generous monthly allowance from his father.
While in Paris, the tall, slim young man put his sophistication and cosmopolitan manner to good use, spending more time pursuing women than pursuing his studies. He became engaged to a young Englishwoman, but she ended the relationship after discovering that he was seeing other women. She had also heard a troubling rumour that he was a member of a tong, a Chinese secret society. Tongs were originally formed to provide support and fellowship for Chinese communities living abroad, but some had gained a reputation for involvement in organised crime.
Marriage and Arrival in New York
After completing his education, Chung returned to Hong Kong, where he married and had a son. He later travelled to Chicago to study for a doctorate in law, still financially supported by his father. In June 1927, Chung returned to Hong Kong for the summer break to visit his wife, son, and parents. Two months later, he travelled back to America, arriving first in New York.
New York in the Roaring Twenties would have been eye-opening for Chung; a city of jazz clubs, speakeasies, and fast-changing social attitudes. Liberated young women known as ‘flappers’ symbolised the age with their bold new fashions, smoking, drinking, and dancing. Life was booming, colourful, and modern, in the years before the Wall Street Crash brought the decade’s exuberance to an abrupt end.
Wai Sheung Siu
It was in New York that 27-year-old Chung met a 29-year-old woman named Wai Sheung Siu. Wai Sheung was the daughter of a wealthy merchant from Macau. As a child, she had attended a Christian school in Hong Kong before continuing her education in England and later travelling to New York with her younger brother.
Wai Sheung was around 5ft tall and was described by friends in America as generous, intelligent, and good-natured. She had graduated from Emerson College in Boston, where she had been president of the Chinese Students’ Club. She was well known in diplomatic and social circles, and her name had appeared regularly in newspapers in connection with academic and society events.
Heiress
Wai Sheung was also friends with the wife of the Chinese ambassador to London and moved in distinguished company. While helping to manage her father’s exhibits in the Chinese section of the British Empire Exhibition at Wembley Park, she rubbed shoulders with Sir Robert Hotung and Lady Hotung, two of the wealthiest and most influential Asian figures of the era. Shortly after the exhibition, Wai Sheung’s father died, leaving her a considerable fortune. She returned to Hong Kong, where she lived near her grandparents and ran an antiques shop, occasionally travelling to New York to sell pieces from her late father’s collection.
Wai Sheung Siu Meets Chung Yi Miao
It was during one of these trips that Wai Sheung crossed paths with the smooth-talking and debonair Chung Yi Miao. They first met at a Dragon Dance, part of the celebrations for the Chinese New Year. Chung bought a motor car and began driving her to restaurants and dances, and on 12 May 1928, they married in New York City. Wai Sheung had no idea that her new husband already had a wife and child back in Hong Kong.
Lake District Honeymoon
They began their honeymoon in Glasgow, where Wai Sheung withdrew £500 from the National Bank of Scotland, worth around £30,000 today. The couple visited Loch Lomond, posed for photographs together, and later stayed at the Caledonian Hotel in Edinburgh. Their next destination was the Lake District, where they arrived on Monday 18 June. Then, as now, the region was a favourite with holidaymakers. Set among the mountains of Cumbria in north-west England, its valleys, waterfalls, ancient woodlands and stretches of open water had long inspired poets and writers, most famously William Wordsworth and Beatrix Potter. By the 1920s, its picturesque villages, dramatic scenery and romantic atmosphere also made it a popular destination for wealthy travellers and honeymooning couples. During their stay, Chung was secretly writing letters to his wife and parents back in Hong Kong, omitting to mention that he had just married another woman.
Arrival at Borrowdale
Chung and Wai Sheung stayed at the Borrowdale Gates Hotel in Grange, an idyllic retreat surrounded by three acres of wooded grounds at the head of Derwentwater. From the hotel, guests looked out towards the dramatic ‘Jaws of Borrowdale’, where the River Derwent and the road are squeezed between the steep slopes of Grange Fell and Castle Crag, marking the entrance to the upper Borrowdale valley. The area would later be described by celebrated fellwalker and guidebook writer Alfred Wainwright as ‘the loveliest square mile in Lakeland’.
At the time, the hotel was owned by Miss Beatrice Elizabeth Crossley, who later recalled that the couple appeared happy and devoted to each other. Both spoke English, although Wai Sheung was noticeably more fluent than her husband. She told Miss Crossley that they were from Hong Kong, that she had visited England before, and that this was Chung’s first visit to the country. On the evening of their arrival, the newlyweds went out for a walk together through the ancient woodland of Borrowdale. The valley’s exceptionally wet climate supports a lush temperate rainforest landscape of oak trees, ferns, mosses and lichens, as well as one of England’s few remaining red squirrel populations.
The Morning of the Murder
The next morning, Tuesday 19 June, the couple went out again together. Chung had his camera with him and took several photographs. During their stay, they are believed to have visited the famous Bowder Stone, an enormous 2,000-tonne boulder balanced improbably on one edge. A steep flight of wooden steps allowed visitors to climb to the top, as much for the thrill as for the breathtaking view.
Chung and Wai Sheung returned to the hotel for lunch, then at about 2 p.m. that afternoon, hotel maid Dorothy Holliday saw them going out together again, walking arm-in-arm and apparently in good spirits. She noticed that Wai Sheung was wearing fawn-coloured kid gloves and carrying a brown umbrella and handbag. Around two hours later, Chung returned to the hotel alone. Another maid, Elizabeth Thompson, noticed that he was holding one hand awkwardly against his side, as though trying to conceal something. He was unusually quiet. After drinking a cup of tea, he went upstairs, where the bathroom tap could be heard running several times over the next few minutes.
Chung then came downstairs and told Miss Crossley that he had caught a cold, so his wife had gone shopping in Keswick to buy warmer clothes and medicine. He returned upstairs, where he could be heard pacing up and down. Time passed, but Wai Sheung did not return. Chung eventually asked Miss Crossley to telephone the local shops to enquire whether anyone had seen his wife. She did so, and later that evening went to the Keswick post office, but no-one had seen Wai Sheung. As concern grew, one of the hotel maids notified the police.
Body Discovery and Crime Scene
At around 8 p.m. that evening, a retired farmer named Thomas Wilson made a terrible discovery in Cummacatta Wood. Between two rocks lay a young Chinese woman of slight build. She was on her back, with an open umbrella partially covering her head and shoulders. When Wilson moved closer, he realised that she was dead. He immediately contacted Detective Pendlebury of Southport Police, whom he knew was holidaying in the area, and Pendlebury arrived at the scene within an hour.
The dead woman was Wai Sheung Siu. Her skirt had been hitched up and her underwear torn, and her left glove lay nearby. A window blind cord had been wrapped four times around her neck, pulled tightly into the flesh and secured with granny knots. A small amount of blood was visible around her mouth. There were no signs of a struggle on the ground, but the third finger of the left hand showed evidence that a ring had been forcibly removed. Detective Pendlebury contacted Inspector Henry Graham of the Cumberland and Westmorland Constabulary, who cycled to the scene to join him. Photographs of the body were taken, and the attending doctor estimated that death had occurred at around 6:30 p.m. though he admitted that the timing could not be established with certainty. There was no evidence of sexual assault. Forensic Pathologist, Professor John MacFall from Liverpool University, discovered traces of blood on the victim’s glove and clothing.
Chung Yi Miao Arrested
Inspector Graham made enquiries in the area, leading him to the Borrowdale Gates Hotel accompanied by two of his constables. They arrived at the hotel around 11 p.m. and arrested Chung Yi Miao on suspicion of murder. The police were struck by the fact that he had been sleeping soundly while his wife was still missing. When they told him that Wai Sheung had been found strangled, Chung seemed emotional and said, ‘My wife’s dead? Suspicion? What do you mean by that?’ He then asked a question which seemed strange at the time and would later become a subject of debate in court: ‘Did she still have her knickers on when you found her?’
Chung was taken to Keswick Police Station to make a statement. He told officers that Wai Sheung had gone out wearing her necklace and diamond ring, adding, ‘If you have those things, you will find the culprit.’ When he was informed that his clothing would need to be examined for traces of blood, Chung quickly replied, ‘if you do find bloodstains on my overcoat, then this was got in New York’, though he didn’t elaborate on how this happened.
Further Evidence Against Chung
When police searched the couple’s hotel room, it didn’t take long for them to find Wai Sheung’s handbag. Her pearl necklace was still inside. The key to her jewellery box was found wrapped inside one of Chung’s shirts, while a search of his suitcase revealed a cardboard box containing two camera film rolls wrapped in tin foil. The films were handed to a photographer to be developed, in the hope they might reveal clues about the victim’s final movements. When the rolls were opened, two rings fell out. They were identified as Wai Sheung’s engagement and wedding rings. Chung himself had told police that finding the missing jewellery would lead them to the culprit, yet there was still more evidence to add to the growing pile. Investigators confirmed that the window blind cord used to strangle Wai Sheung had come from a cupboard in the hotel room occupied by the couple.
Keswick Police Court
While in custody, Chung’s family in Hong Kong were notified of his arrest. An initial hearing was held at Keswick Police Court on 20 July 1928. This was to determine prima facie, or in other words, to establish if there was sufficient evidence for the suspect to stand trial. Large crowds gathered outside the building, and novelist Hugh Walpole was among those who managed to gain admission. Chung was represented by Sir Gerald Thesiger, who entered a plea of Not Guilty on his behalf, while Sefton Cohen appeared for the prosecution. Chung was offered an interpreter but refused, insisting that he did not need one.
It emerged that several other people, described as being of ‘Oriental appearance’ had been seen in the area on the day of Wai Sheung’s death. Police had been unable to trace them, although there was no evidence that they were connected to the case. Professor MacFall testified that he had found no traces of blood on the defendant’s clothing or signs of it having been recently washed, and Gerald Thesiger argued that there was insufficient evidence to justify sending Chung Yi Miao for trial. He urged the magistrates to remember the case of Oscar Slater, a German-born man who had been convicted in Scotland in 1909 for murdering an elderly woman. Slater’s conviction was controversial as it had been largely based on circumstantial evidence and was eventually overturned.
Despite Thesiger’s warning, the magistrates ruled that there was sufficient evidence for Chung Yi Miao to stand trial at the next assizes. When the decision was announced, Chung stood in the dock and declared, ‘I did not kill my wife’.
The Trial of Chung Yi Miao
The trial opened at the Cumberland Assizes in Carlisle on Monday 22 October 1928. Swathes of newspaper reporters attended, along with curious members of the public eager to catch a glimpse of the Chinese defendant whose case had drawn national attention. Miao was defended by Joseph Cooksey Jackson K.C., while Mr J.E. Singleton appeared for the Crown. Once again, Chung pleaded Not Guilty. This time, an interpreter was present, with Jackson arguing that his client had only understood about 60% of the earlier police court hearing.
A jeweller testified that the necklace and rings recovered from Chung’s possession were valued at £3,386, equivalent to approximately £190,000 today. When questioned about the rings hidden inside the film rolls, Chung claimed he had seen Wai Sheung put them there, but this contradicted his earlier statement, in which he had said she had been wearing them when she left the hotel shortly before her death.
Jackson put forward an alternative theory. He argued that Wai Sheung’s habit of wearing expensive jewellery had attracted the attention of international thieves during their voyage from New York. According to the defence, two Chinese men had stared intently at Chung and Wai Sheung while they were in Glasgow and had followed them to the Lake District. Chung claimed he had seen the same men near the hotel on the day of the murder, while another witness reported seeing two men, described as being of ‘Oriental appearance’, travelling in a motor car. The defence suggested that the men waited for Wai Sheung to leave the hotel alone, supposedly on her way to Keswick to buy medicine for her husband. They then attacked and robbed her, placed her body in their car, and later dumped her in Cummacatta Wood. There was further testimony from railway porter Stanley Atkinson, who said that on the morning after the murder, he had seen two men whom he believed to be Japanese, boarding the 10 a.m. train to Carlisle. He remembered that they had asked about connections to Glasgow or Edinburgh. The men were never traced.
The prosecution argued that there were serious problems with this theory. No witnesses recalled seeing Wai Sheung shopping in Keswick, and there was no evidence that her body had been dragged or carried into the wood from elsewhere. Forensic evidence also suggested that her clothing had been deliberately torn, possibly in an attempt to make the crime look like sexual assault. The prosecution maintained that the missing jewellery found in Chung’s possession pointed to greed as the motive for murder.
Another intriguing and much-debated piece of evidence involved three torn scraps of paper bearing handwritten Chinese characters, found in the room where the couple had stayed in Edinburgh. Chung admitted the writing was his but disputed the translations and claimed he could not remember why he had written the notes. The translations presented in court were, ‘Arrival Europe, again consider’, ‘Be sure not to do this thing on the ship’, and, confusingly, ‘Be sure of doing it on the ship’. Chung claimed the true meanings were, ‘Arrival Europe, then discuss’, ‘Do not discuss this on the boat’ and ‘Be sure to discuss this matter on the ship.’ His main defence was that his words had been misinterpreted or mistranslated throughout the proceedings.
Guilty Verdict
On Wednesday 24 October 1928, after 90 minutes of deliberation, the jury found Chung Yi Miao guilty of murder and Justice Travers Humphreys passed the death sentence. When given a chance to speak, Chung told the court, ‘If this will be my last moment, I did not kill my wife.’ As he was led from the dock, he shouted, ‘I am not guilty, my Lord.’
The Appeal
The appeal was held almost a month later. Rather than relying on his barrister, Chung chose to speak on his own behalf. As he entered the court with a large bundle of documents under his arm, he explained that although he respected the abilities of his counsel, he felt compelled by God to speak personally to the court. His command of English formed the mainstay of his appeal. Chung argued that his question to the police, reported as, ‘Did she still have her knickers on when you found her?’ had been misunderstood and that he had actually asked, ‘Did she still have her necklace on?’ Even if true, however, this seemed to make little difference to the other evidence against him. He also claimed that prejudice against him as a Chinese man had influenced the case, pointing out failings in the investigation such as the fact that footprints near Wai Sheung’s body had not been preserved by the police.
Chung Yi Miao addressed the court for nearly four hours and was warned several times not to repeat himself. The appeal judges, Lord Hewart, Mr Justice Avory and Mr Justice Acton rejected the appeal. In dismissing it, Lord Hewart said, ‘The truth of the matter is that there was ample evidence on which the jury might find Miao was guilty of this cruelly diabolical and calculated murder. There is no ground at all for this appeal. Having listened to his appeal, one is satisfied that whatever may have stood in his way, it is not lack of acquaintance with the English language or procedure.’
Following the failed appeal, Chung’s solicitor sent an appeal for clemency to the Home Office. Mrs Miao travelled from China to England to campaign for a reprieve for her son and told reporters that she believed Chinese secret societies were responsible, insisting, ‘My boy is incapable of murder.’ A petition calling for mercy was organised, with its supporters writing, ‘The spectacle of a possibly innocent person of foreign extraction suffering the extreme penalty under English law through having been condemned on insufficient evidence is unbearable.’
Executed at Strangeways Prison
Their efforts were unsuccessful and Chung Yi Miao was hanged at Strangeways Prison in Manchester by executioner Thomas Pierrepoint on Thursday 6 December 1928. On the same day, Wai Sheung’s body began its journey back to Hong Kong for burial at a Chinese Christian cemetery, while her killer was buried in an unmarked grave on prison grounds.
Press Stories and Alleged Connections to Chinese Tongs
Three months after his execution, the press reported that Chung had made a confession to prison staff before his death. Allegedly, a doctor in New York had told Wai Sheung shortly after their marriage that she was unable to have children, so Chung had decided to kill her and find another wife. The papers quoted him as having said, ‘She died so that I could marry another woman, who could bear me a son, and perpetuate my name’. However, this account is questionable, as Chung already had a son with his first wife.
Other newspapers in Britain and America printed sensational theories linking Chung Yi Miao to a powerful Chinese tong, or secret society. They claimed that Wai Sheung’s family had been enemies of the organisation for generations, and speculated that when the tong discovered their marriage, Chung was summoned to a secret meeting and ordered to kill his wife or face the consequences himself. Some reports even suggested that the two mysterious men seen in the Lake District and Edinburgh were members of the tong, and that the scraps of paper bearing ambiguous messages had been instructions from the shadowy society.
These claims were never substantiated, and the stories may have reflected the fascination of parts of the Western press with what they presented as the mystery and exoticism of Chinese culture. We saw something similar in an earlier case I covered, that of Lock Ah Tam.
Mrs Miao’s Version of Events
Before returning to China, Chung’s mother gave an interview to the press that was very different from her earlier statements, revealing that her son had already been married in Hong Kong. She also disclosed that the mysterious Chinese men whom several witnesses had seen travelling in a motor car were not members of a secret society at all, but detectives employed by the father of Chung’s first wife. According to Mrs Miao, rumours of Chung’s bigamy had somehow reached China and aroused the family’s suspicions. She said that she had originally travelled to England to try and clear her son’s name but had since become convinced of his guilt. She told reporters, ‘I came here in the belief that my son was innocent of the crime and that there had been a grave miscarriage of justice. I know I was wrong in that belief, and I have to acknowledge the sentence was a just one. There is nothing more terrible for a mother than to have to see that her son has been guilty of a terrible crime.’
She went on to explain that Chung’s first wife had sent telegrams announcing that she intended to travel to England. Chung would have received these messages while honeymooning in the Lake District with Wai Sheung. His mother suggested that her son had become overwhelmed by the prospect of his first wife arriving in England and confronting him. Yet even while accepting his guilt, she tried to place some of the blame on Wai Sheung, saying, ‘It is my belief that he was not in his right mind. I believe that he fell under the influence of this woman who had rare gifts of fascination, and that he became so infatuated with her that he could not be held accountable for his actions. When too late, he realised he loved his real wife more than this woman, and that he felt he must end the affair. I pity my boy. Had I been near at hand, I would have saved him from the influence of this woman.’
These revelations cast new light on the scraps of paper found in the hotel room. The phrase, ‘Arrival Europe, then discuss’ may have related to the imminent arrival of Chung’s first wife or her family, rather than to any secret society.
Legacy
Chung Yi Miao’s possessions were auctioned in Keswick on 27 February 1929. Among the items were jade and gold cufflinks, his camera, some leather attaché cases, a tennis racquet, wristwatches, books, suitcases, and various items of clothing. Somewhere, an object once owned by Chung may still sit gathering dust today, passed down through generations and tucked away in someone’s home, its owners completely unaware that it once belonged to the Lake District killer.
Miss Beatrice Crossley, who owned the Borrowdale Gates Hotel at the time of the murder, died in 1970. The hotel remains open today, still overlooking the wooded valley and the blue expanse of Derwentwater that formed the backdrop to one of the Lake District’s most extraordinary murder cases.
At the heart of the case was Wai Shueng Siu, a young woman with the distinction of being the first Chinese student to graduate from Emerson College in Boston, whose honeymoon ended violently and far from home in the woods of Borrowdale.
Researched and written by Prash and Melissa Ganendran. Published 24 July 2026.
© 2026 Prash Ganendran. All Rights Reserved
Video Documentary Version of this Case
Related Case
Lock Ah Tam and the Chinatown Tragedy – The story of how Chinese businessman Lock Ah Tam murdered his family in Birkenhead.
Sources
Ancestry.co.uk
Two Chinese Domestic Murders – H. J. Lethbridge
UK, Calendar of Prisoners, 1868–1929
New York, New York, U.S., Marriage License Indexes, 1928
UK and Ireland, Incoming Passenger Lists, 1878-1960
Boston Evening Globe, 22 February 1922
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Evening News (London) – 20 November 1928
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Evening Standard – 20 November 1928
The Journal – 21 November 1928
Dundee Weekly News – Saturday 24 November 1928
The News – 1 December 1928
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Daily Express – Saturday 8 December 1928
Liverpool Echo – Saturday 8 December 1928
The Cincinnati Enquirer – 25 December 1928
The Sunday People – Sunday 6 January 1929
The Sunday Sun – 6 January 1929
Tuesday Express – Tuesday 26 March 1929
