Amy Yap Sing ran a lodging-house in Liverpool’s Chinese quarter, and when she became ill towards the end of 1908 and was confined to her bed, two of her most frequent visitors were Yun Yap, 40, and See Lee, 38.

Amy had first met Yun Yap in Cardiff four years earlier, and when she moved to Liverpool in January 1908 and opened a lodging-house, she employed him as her cook. He had left 10 months later, finding other lodgings nearby, but had kept in touch.

Amy had known See Lee since January 1908, when she met him in London. She had later helped him to establish a boarding-house in Cardiff, but the venture had not been a success. He had recently arrived in Liverpool, and on December 3rd, 1908, he and Yun Yap both visited Amy at the same time. The two men already knew each other; they had a few drinks while they chatted with Amy and then left together, apparently the best of friends.

See Lee called again the next day, staying with Amy for about 15 minutes. Yun Yap turned up at 9 p.m., gave Amy an apple, and as they talked he stood at the foot of her bed.

A couple of minutes later Amy heard the front door open downstairs. She asked Yun Yap to see who had come, and on returning from the landing he told her that See Lee had arrived. He was standing at the foot of Amy’s bed again when See Lee entered the room, shot him, and walked out without a word.

Yun Yap fell across the foot of the bed, a bullet in his side. Amy began to get dressed to fetch help, when a woman who had been nursing her arrived, saw what had happened, and ran for a doctor and the police.

See Lee was arrested the next day when he was observed acting suspiciously at Liverpool’s Lime Street Station. Meanwhile Yun Yap had told detectives at his hospital bedside that he had no idea why his friend See Lee had shot him. On DECEMBER 7th he died from his injuries, and See Lee was charged with murder.

At his trial the court heard that he had claimed that Yun Yap was jealous of him, resenting his closeness to Amy. He told the police that it was Yun Yap who had the gun, and had pointed it at him when he entered Amy’s bedroom. He said he had wrested the gun from Yun Yap’s hand and had fired it because he feared for his own life.

Amy Yap Sing, however, told a very different story. The jury decided that it was See Lee who had been jealous. They found him guilty, and he was hanged at Liverpool on March 30th, 1909.