In preparation for Mak's new sentencing trial, Senior Deputy Prosecutor Tim Bradshaw contacted the evidence office of the county clerk's office, only to learn that the evidence had been destroyed. A clerk had mistakenly assigned all evidence from Mak's and Benjamin Ng's murder cases to that of Tony Ng's. State law grants a holding period of six years after a case's closure before any evidence can be destroyed. Before the evidence is indeed destroyed, attorneys for the defense and prosecution are given notice by the county clerk's office. Tony Ng's case was closed in 1988 and the court disposed of his case's exhibits on June 10, 1994.

The evidence from the worst mass murder in the history of Seattle had been destroyed.

Prosecutor Bradshaw said that he never received any notice that the evidence would be destroyed. "The notice wasn't addressed to me," he said, "but to my partner and there are no records to show that it was ever received." Bradshaw was also shocked that the clerk's office handled the disposal of the evidence so casually. "We're talking about a mass murder here."

The physical evidence may have been destroyed, but there were photographs. One afternoon in December, just a few weeks before Christmas, I made a trip down to the Seattle Police Department. The previous month, I had made a Public Disclosure request to view the photographs taken hours after the bodies were discovered. I had never been inside the Wah Mee Club, and I visualized the Club's interior from verbal descriptions, floorplans, and erroneous reportage from the local newspapers. I was far less interested in viewing the bodies and blood than the inside of the place.

A couple weeks later I received notice from the Seattle Police Department. My letter was received and I was invited to schedule an appointment with Judy DeMello -- the Director of Records, Evidence & Identification.

Ms. DeMello met with me in her office on the fourth floor of the Police Department. I removed my coat, sat down, and we briefly discussed the case. A short, older woman, she had dark curly hair and wore a festive Christmas broach on the lapel of her blazer. She was a smart woman, feisty even, and excused herself for a moment to chew out a detective who had improperly revoked a liquor license. "You want a lawsuit?" she hollered at the young detective, who stood somewhat embarrassed in the doorway. I sat at the table, feeling a bit uncomfortable for having witnessed the detective being barked at, and was relieved when Ms. DeMello apologized for the interruption and returned to our discussion.

"You have to understand," Ms. DeMello told me, "this case was huge. There was nothing else like it in Seattle. When we began the investigation, we pursued every lead. High School kids, friends, gangs -- you name it." Ms. DeMello had been working for the Seattle Police Department at the time, though she was not one of the detectives on the case. She had a desk job then, and helped compile information investigators were collecting.

As we spoke, I couldn't help but repeatedly glance at a large photo album lying between us on the table. The album was jammed with sheets of photographs -- so many sheets, in fact, that the album's front cover didn't quite close properly. Ms. DeMello occasionally rested her hand on the album, as though it were some sort of Bible, while she spoke about the investigation.

I asked her if she knew whether or not Wai Chin was still alive. Ms. DeMello said that he was not -- he had died of natural causes in May 1993. He had been living in a nursing home and his health had been failing for some time. At the time of his death, King County Prosecutor Norm Maleng commented, "Wai Chin will be remembered for his bravery, honor and courage. Here is a man who had the presence of mind to feign death after being shot. He was then left there to face an almost certain death, but he survived and there is no question his assistance to police and his testimony at trial were instrumental in bringing Mak to justice."

Judge William Downing, one of the prosecutors at the three Wah Mee trials, hoped that Chin would be remembered for more than his part in the Wah Mee case. "I resist the notion that a few minutes of violence define his life," Downing remarked.

Ron Chew, a reporter for the Examiner during the Wah Mee trials, commented, "There's a Chinese saying that 'Heaven has eyes.' People [saw] Wai Chin as being that kind of voice of judgement to make sure the criminals would not get away."

I was amazed by how long Chin had survived, considering what he had been through. After all, doctors left bullet fragments in his neck because removing them was too risky and quite possibly carried the promise of complications during surgery. Chin had survived the worst mass murder in Washington State history, spent the next decade-and-a-half with bullet fragments in his neck, and still lived well into his early-seventies.

Ms. DeMello said, "I got your letter requesting to look at the crime-scene photographs. Our attorneys reviewed your request, and so did the attorneys for the three men involved. What we decided to do was invite you down to look at the photographs. If you want a copy of any of the photographs, though, that may be a different situation." She explained that I would have to specify which photos I wanted, my motive for obtaining these photos, and review my request with the attorneys involved with the case.

I explained that I was not interested in obtaining any of the photographs. They aren't exactly the sort of photos you would want to frame and hang in your home; I really had no desire for any keepsakes. I simply wanted a better understanding of what the inside of the Club looked like. "I've never been in there," I explained, "and the building's owner is rather unsympathetic toward curiosity-seekers."

"Why are you interested in the case?" Ms. DeMello asked.

I explained that I had written a newspaper article about Tony Ng's 1997 request for a retrial and, subsequently, the article led to an interest in writing a book about the case.

Our conversation turned to the photo album, and Ms. DeMello opened its cover. "I'll explain to you how this book is laid out. The first portion is crime-scene photographs -- the bodies inside the Club, the alley, portraits of the deceased, et cetera. The latter portion consists of autopsy photos." She thumbed through the album and placed a Post-It note on the pages containing autopsy photos. "Some people are squeamish. I'll flag the pages with autopsy photos and you can proceed at your own peril."

She also removed two large floorplans of the Club. Both were professional renderings used for a court exhibit during the trials. The first rendering outlined where the bodies were located when detectives entered the Club; the other floorplan was simply that of the Club without bodies. "I can make copies of these for you, if you'd like." I said I would be grateful for copies, so she took the sketches down the hall, leaving me to review the photo album alone in her office.

The photos were small, full-color, and arranged in rows on index print. Each sheet contained about thirty photos -- about five strips, six photos per strip -- that coincided with a set of negatives fitted into a plastic protective sheet stapled to the back of each page. The first strip of photos consisted of mug shots of Benjamin Ng and Willie Mak. I had thus far only seen grainy black-and-white photographs of the young men -- the result of photocopied microfilm and newspaper clippings. These photos were crisp, the color sharp, and what struck me most was how young the two men looked. They were short and skinny -- almost scrawny -- and, as I proceeded further through the album, it was difficult for me to imagine these tiny young men holding up one of the most profitable gambling clubs in Seattle, and leaving behind a carnage like no other.

What also struck me about the photos of Benjamin Ng and Willie Mak were their expressions. They both looked exhausted, disappointed about being caught. They showed no visible signs of remorse. They appeared neither frightened, nor timid. It was as though being hauled down to the police station was a terrible inconvenience for them.

The next several strips consisted of interior shots of the Izumi residence -- specifically the room that Benjamin shared with his girlfriend, Kennis Izumi. One shot featured the hallway leading toward their room. A plastic mat ran the length of the hallway, protecting the light carpet, and leading toward the entrance to Benjamin's bedroom. The bedroom itself was a complete wreck. The floor was covered with rumpled clothes, dumbbells, tennis shoes, sleeping bags, jackets, and trash. There was so much junk on the floor that the carpet was barely visible. A simple full mattress lay in the corner of the room, with wrinkled white sheets and a single pillow with a rainbow-stripe print. A simple wooden desk was cluttered with pencils, Kleenex, writing tablets, radio, lamp, a half-dozen oranges, a bottle of Seagram's, and container of Planter's nuts. On the dresser were what appeared to be marijuana, a wad of money, and a couple of handguns. A black-and-white baseball cap hung from a hook on the wall. There were a few photographs of leather jackets, holsters, guns, wads of cash, and a red duffel bag. The guns in the photographs seemed larger than those used at the Wah Mee -- I remembered that the .22 Rugers used to murder the victims were never recovered, the young men having dumped them into Lake Washington. Benjamin's bedroom appeared so disorderly, the room seemed to have imploded shortly before the photos were taken.

The next several pages of photographs were interior shots of the Wah Mee Club shortly after the bodies were discovered. These included several exterior shots of the Club, shrouded in darkness. The photographs had been taken before dawn, literally hours after the three men had opened fire in the Club.

A sort epiphany washed over me when I viewed the first few photos of the Club. As I wrote earlier, I had never actually been inside the Wah Mee. I had peered through the single clear brick, into the office where one of the victims had been killed, but had never been able to open the doors and walk inside. Of the first few crime scene photographs in the album, one was of the exterior of the Club -- with both sets of security doors wide open. The Club was suddenly accessible to me, albeit strictly through these photographs. In the narrow area between the set of double doors, there was blood. A few drops, admittedly, but they were large drops that ran from inside the Club and out into the alley, curving away from the entrance. It was clearly the blood of Chin, who had staggered out in search of help.

The interior of the Club was enormous and sprawling. A Chinatown resident had described the Wah Mee as nice but not necessarily opulent. Indeed, there were a few worn couches and the walls were an off-white color and the gaming tables showed some sign of age, but the place was no dump. Chinese lanterns hung from the ceiling. A beautiful, elaborate bar S-curved along the north side of the room. The bar was enormous, accommodating more than a dozen red stools -- two of which had been overturned during the ruckus. On the other side of the bar, against the wall, was a back bar, where food and drinks were prepared. A small black-and-white television sat on the back bar, and I remembered that a Sonics game was on the TV when Tony Ng and Willie Mak entered the Club the night of the killings. In the photograph, it appeared that the television was still on -- the detectives having left everything untouched until their investigation was complete.

There were a few photos of the Club's office. A simple, round clock hung above the door to the office. The man in the office had not been tied up like the others and, in what could only be describe as a natural reflex, he had raised an arm to shield his face before shots were fired at his head. He lay slumped over a couple of chairs, his body contorted in such a way that his legs were twisted in one chair and his upper body was twisted in an adjacent chair. His arm covered his face, but it was very clear that he was dead. Several steel safety deposit boxes littered the floor, emptied of their contents. In another photo, the body having been removed from the office, I could clearly see a chair cushion covered in damp blood.

The Wah Mee Club was, essentially, one large room divided by "upper" and "lower" levels. The upper level -- where the bar, office, and a couple of tables were positioned -- was carpeted in a red-and-black weave pattern. Toward the center of the room, two small steps down to the south, was the lower level. On each side of the steps were beautifully painted black-, yellow-, and red-striped cement poles that subtly distinguished the separate levels of the Club and marked the entrance to the gaming area, where four gaming tables were located. The lower level wasn't carpeted but, rather, cement painted an off-red color. The rest of the bodies were on the lower level, sprawled out in a concentration of blood that covered the floor like a large pond. The bodies were hog-tied -- many so tight, in fact, that the legs of the victims were twisted grotesquely and unnaturally. In one photo, two of the victims were positioned with their heads against one another, seemingly staring into a deep pool of their own blood. One of the victims was still dressed in a green-checkered wool coat and hat, which made me guess that he had arrived at the Club only moments before being killed.

Detectives circled the room in the photographs. Some were kneeling over the bodies. Others were standing with their hands on hips, staring at the carnage in disbelief. Police Chief Fitzsimons was in one of the photos.

I continued to flip through the album, studying a strip depicting the red Opal, license plate UHV241, used on the night of the killings. The photos of the car were taken in a low-lit garage overlooking the high-rises downtown. I also viewed photos of the funeral, taken at Lakeview Cemetery on a rainy day. Scores of mourners huddled beneath umbrellas, amid gravestones and an expanse of damp green grass.

The autopsy photographs were candidly gruesome. I could tell that, as the victims were brought in, the body bags were unzipped and a photo was taken. The victims were still fully dressed, their expressions twisted and their faces covered in blood. Their shirtfronts were covered in blood, and each victim was still tied. Later photographs revealed the victims, naked, on the coroner's tables. Where there were bullet holes in the head, the victim's hair had been shaved to expose the wounds.

The last set of photographs was actually supplied by family and friends. They were black-and-white photos of each victim, taken when they were alive. Each photo depicted a smiling, happy, sometimes proud, Chinese American smiling for the camera. It differed strikingly from the other photos, and sadly bookended the entire album.

Ms. DeMello returned with the photocopies. She made a phone call. I flipped back and forth through the album, jotting notes and trying to process what I had seen. I flipped back to the first page, the sheet with the mug shots of Benjamin Ng and Willie Mak. I studied the photos, trying to find something in their eyes that even remotely resembled remorse. I saw nothing like that. I tried to understand how these young men could have left behind such a bloody mess at the Wah Mee Club, yet fearlessly stared at the police camera, with no expression of shame or guilt. I tried to imagine what they were thinking in those photos, and the only thing I could come up with was, "Damn! The perfect crime wasn't so perfect after all."

Ms. DeMello finished her phone call and returned to the table. She flipped through the album herself, pointing out a set of photos that she felt was the most revealing. They weren't photos of bodies or blood. In fact, the photos were taken after the bodies were removed and the bloody floors cleaned. The photos were of mannequins, placed exactly where the bodies were discovered. Each mannequin had dowels sticking out of their heads -- the dowels representing the path of the bullets from barrel-to-victim. I understood why she found these photos most revealing; the dowels were all placed in the mannequins at sharp angles. The guns had been fired directly over the victims, clearly in cold blood, and I had a mental picture of Willie Mak and Benjamin Ng hovering above, pumping bullets into their victims.

"I keep this book locked up in a file cabinet," Ms. DeMello told me, closing the album. "I'm the only one with a key to that cabinet. I cannot risk the chance of these photos disappearing. There was nothing else like this -- nothing so horrible -- in Seattle."

We talked a bit more about the case. We were both amazed by the miracle that Chin survived the killings and went onto testify against the three men. I asked, "If Chin had not survived, and all the victims had been killed, do you think the detectives would have solved the case?"

Ms. DeMello had her doubts. "I think we would still be investigating this case today. This case would still be open. It would never have been closed until the murders were solved."

I thanked Ms. DeMello for taking the time to meet with me. She walked me down the hallway, toward the elevators. We shook hands and she wished me luck with my book. I took the elevator down to the first floor, passed through the building's doors, and buttoned my coat against the rain and chill of a December afternoon in Seattle.

Chapter Sixteen | Visiting the Wah Mee on the anniversary of the murders

This story originally appeared as a serialized feature in Asian Focus newspaper