British banker appears in court charged with murder of two women in Hong Kong

A 29-year-old British banker appeared in a Hong Kong court today charged with two counts of murder after police found the bodies of two women in his apartment in the district of Wan Chai, including one inside a suitcase on a balcony. Rurik George Caton Jutting, looking stony-faced and unshaven and wearing a black T-shirt and dark-rimmed glasses, said he understood both charges. The brief hearing was adjourned until November 10, without Jutting entering a plea.

It’s very shocking because we never expected something like this to happen in Hong Kong, especially in the same building that I’m living in.

Banker Mina Liu, a resident of the Tower

A charge sheet read out in court said the woman whose body was found in the suitcase had been killed on October 27. The second woman was killed on November 1, the document said, without saying how they were killed. Investigators found a naked woman with knife wounds to her neck and buttock in the living room of the flat, on the 31st floor of a plush residential block. The corpse of the other woman was discovered decaying inside a suitcase on the balcony. Police reportedly believe the victims were sex workers. Court documents named one of the victims as Sumarti Ningsih, listing the other as an unknown female. At least one of the women was Indonesian, the government in Jakarta said.

Stepping down from the ledge. Burden lifted; new journey begins. Scared and anxious but also excited. The first step is always the hardest.

Jutting, who is believed to have recently quit his job at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, posted on his Facebook last week

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