The Arrest

Ng had sisters in Toronto and Calgary, an uncle in Yorkshire, England and former Marine friends in Hawaii. Interpol and Scotland Yard were informed about his possible whereabouts in the hope of arresting him in one of several locations.Although bones and articles of clothing had been recovered at the bunker site, it was several more days before the first skeletal remains of two people were unearthed. The bones had been sawn in pieces and burnt. Also, the discovery of a sealed container revealed a cache of personal belongings and several videotapes. One of them disclosed disturbing footage of Kathleen Allen who was seen chained to a chair and made to perform a striptease while being taunted by two men off screen.Another video revealed Leonard Lake himself describing his fantasies about kidnapping women and enslaving them. Most disturbing of all was footage showing Brenda O’Connor pleading for information about her baby.The baby and O’Connor’s partner Lonnie Bond had most likely been killed before the tape was recorded. O’Connor then appeared to agree to co-operate and later she is heard taking a shower, no doubt under duress - with the same men who were heard taunting Ms Allen.Later excavations, involving the demolishing of the entire bunker, finally revealed up to ten bodies (seven men, three women) including two baby boys and forty-five pounds of bone fragments. Evidence pointed to the slaughter of up to 25 people in total.On the day that Balasz had taken Ng to the San Francisco airport he had been seen boarding an American Airlines flight to Chicago. The search took the FBI to a hotel where Ng had checked out four days earlier. Ng travelled to Detroit with a friend before entering Canada. He managed to elude the authorities for nearly a month before a shopping theft in a Calgary grocery store led police officers to approach him. One was shot in the hand, but Ng was eventually overpowered and charged with robbery, possession of a firearm and attempted murder of a police officer.When news of his capture alerted the American Task Force, bureaucratic red tape soon obstructed the extradition of Ng for trial in the States. This protracted affair went on for six years as Canadian officials refused to hand over any prisoner who was charged on a capital offence that could lead to the death penalty.In the interim, Ng was questioned by US detectives. He maintained his innocence regarding the killing of the victims found at the Wilseyville bunker and insisted that Leonard Lake was responsible for most of the abductions and murders.While serving his four year 'sentence' for theft and assault charges in Calgary, Ng invested his time in learning everything he could about American law.It was to be the start of a protracted roller coaster ride where Ng would use every legal trick up his sleeve to delay proceedings against him for the murders. Ng was finally extradited to America on 26 September 1991 and incarcerated in Sacramento prison while awaiting trial.During this time the devious Ng used his newfound knowledge of American law to draw out proceedings. First he made formal complaints ranging from poor treatment and bad food to even declaring that he was forced to take medication for motion sickness which resulted in him being unfit for court.One clever tactic was filing to represent himself, which then took considerable time to arrange only for him to withdraw from the offer at the last minute.When Ng and his attorneys insisted that the trial be moved to Orange County for fear of media prejudice in San Andreas, this in itself became a protracted arrangement particularly when OC officials complained that such a trial would bankrupt them. Finally the matter was resolved when the Californian state agreed to pay all costs.After having delayed court proceedings which also involved Ng dismissing his own attorneys and filing a million dollar suit against them for incompetence, Ng was finally placed in the dock in October 1998, thirteen years after he had been initially arrested.