UPDATE (November 8, 2016 at 4.03pm CST): Rurik Jutting has been found guilty in the murders of two Indonesian women in Hong Kong. Read more about the verdict here.
Rurik Jutting, 31, a British-born and Hong Kong-based banker, stands accused of the torture and murder of two sex workers.
Jutting was arrested two years ago, and his trial is ongoing as he contests the charge of murder with a plea of manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility. He faces a mandatory life sentence and jurors will begin considering their verdict today.
As the case progresses, top psychologists have delved into Jutting’s mind to reveal the inner workings of his disturbed personal life, while the police investigation reveals the grim extent of the sordid acts that took place in his apartment. Here's everything you need to know about the defendant and the events surrounding the ongoing trial.
Who is Rurik Jutting?
Rurik Jutting after his arrest in 2014.
Rurik Jutting on the way to court earlier this month.
Jutting is a Cambridge graduate and had been a successful advisor at Bank of America Merrill Lynch earning a very respectable GB£250,000 a year.
His career and life took a downward turn when in 2013 he became mired in controversy and was investigated for financial trading irregularities while working in the London office. The investigation cast him in a bad light and he was sent out of the way to work in Hong Kong. Prior to this point, his career had been on an upward trajectory, there was even talk of a promotion to a Vice President position.
As he was being transferred to Hong Kong, he reportedly succumbed to a burgeoning cocaine habit and resorted to drinking three quarters of a bottle of vodka to get to sleep each night. Professor Derek Perkins, a forensic psychologist working for the defense, said that this behavior showed that "there was a coming together of events. You could see the general collapse under that situation and the spiral out of control in the use of drugs and sex workers. This was his reaction to the situation."
As a boy, Jutting had been abused at a Winchester College, a top school in the UK. At age 15 he witnessed his father's attempted suicide. The court has been informed that in additon to his penchant for drugs and prostitutes, he also had an addiction to violent pornography.
The horrific events in Hong Kong
The first victim, Sumarti Ningsih, whose body was discovered in a suitcase.
The second victim, Seneng Mujiasih.
Jutting is accused of murdering two prostitutes in November of 2014.
In the weeks prior to the murders, Jutting had had meet-ups with two transsexuals and a number of prostitutes. His binging meant he stopped turning up for work and he reportedly lied to his employers, telling them he had been diagnosed with HIV. Speaking to Professor Perkins about this period he said, “I was trying to do everything I could to get new experiences but always ended up disappointed”.
His desire for new thrills led him to seek the services of sex workers Sumarti Ningsih, 23, and Seneng Mujiasih, 26, who had both moved from Indonesia to Hong Kong looking for work before turning to the sex trade. According to Jutting, the women were "unlucky" to fall prey to his inner monster.
His accounts of the murders make for shocking reading. In a series of video confessionals and police interviews, he revealed the sordid details of the women’s torture and killing. (Warning: graphic details ahead):
“I just killed someone, first person I ever killed, I cut her throat in the bathroom ... to be precise I cut her throat while she was bending over licking dirty toilet bowl.
“I treated her as a non person, a sex object. And that turned me on.
“She died here alone. She died after being tortured and raped and just mentally brutalised. Threats of death and mutilation. I have never seen anyone so scared.
“Do you want me to hit you? If you say 'Yes', I hit you once. If you say 'No' I hit you twice'. If you scream I will punch you, you understand?
“At the moment I am supposed to feel pretty disgusted and pretty bad but at the moment I am feeling hungry. That is not the mind of a sane person.
“It's Monday night. I've held her captive since early Saturday, I've raped her repeatedly, I tortured her, tortured her badly.
“She was unlucky to be the person in my flat when I realised that physically hurting someone when under cocaine was something I gained satisfaction from.”
He raped and tortured his first victim over a three day period before stuffing her corpse into a suitcase and hiding it out on his balcony. The body of his second victim was discovered with knife wounds on her legs and buttocks. He filmed the attack on his phone so that he could relive it at his leisure.
The ongoing trial
The footage Jutting filmed on his phone of the episode and of his personal revelations surrounding it are undeniably incriminating, but it was also Jutting that phoned the police following a call to his mother. The facts of the case are not being disputed.
The legal battle surrounds the extent of Jutting's culpability. The defence has issued a plea of manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility, a lesser crime than murder and the charge being levelled by the prosecution.
The defense's case rests upon not only his drug and alcohol use, but also the two personality disorders he is said to suffer from — a narcisitic personality and sexual sadism disorder. They argue that taken together and in conjunction with the other factors, it means that Jutting was mentally removed from the killings and therefore should not be found guilty of murder.
The prosecution point to his purchases of sex toys and torture devices as evidence of planning and say that throughout the ordeal he acted in a calm and measured way with full knowledge of his actions.
“Even when he was torturing her, his conduct to her was very controlled," the argument says.
As the case draws to an end, the verdict will be up to the jury to decide. A judge told jurors yesterday to put their emotions and disgust about the case aside, according to the BBC.
"You must approach this with intellectual honesty, not coloured by passion or disgust that you feel at the dreadful acts which the defendant has admitted he carried out," Deputy High Court Judge Michael Stuart-Moore said. "The point that he has an appalling private life is neither here nor there."
[Images via Daily Mail, BBC]
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