Today’s episode is another case connected to Asian true crime outside of Asia. This case takes us to New Haven, Connecticut, and to one of the most prestigious universities in the world: Yale University. But this story is not about privilege, achievement, or academic success, although Annie Le had all of those things ahead of her. This is a story about a young woman at the beginning of a bright future, a doctoral student, a daughter, a fiancée, and someone just days away from her wedding.

On September 8, 2009, 24-year-old Annie Marie Thu Le walked into a Yale research building where she worked as a graduate student in pharmacology. She was seen entering the building, but she never came back out. At first, there was confusion. Then there was fear. Her belongings were later found, including her phone, purse, credit cards, and money , which made it clear that Annie had not simply walked away.

For days, police, Yale officials, family, friends, and the public searched for answers. And then, on September 13, the day Annie was supposed to marry the man she loved, her body was found hidden inside the very building where she had last been seen.

This is the story of Chol Soo Lee, a Korean American man who was just 21 years old when he was accused of murdering a Chinese American gang leader in San Francisco’s Chinatown.

He was convicted and sent to prison for a crime he insisted he did not commit. But while behind bars, his life became even more complicated, and he eventually found himself on death row.

What followed was extraordinary. Chol Soo Lee’s case sparked one of the first major pan-Asian American justice movements in the United States, bringing together students, journalists, activists, lawyers, churches, and immigrant communities who all rallied behind one demand: Free Chol Soo Lee.

But this is not a simple story of freedom and triumph. It is also a story about trauma, survival, and what happens to a person after the world turns them into a symbol.

Today’s case takes us to Brisbane, Australia, where a young Indonesian woman named Mayang Prasetyo’s death made headlines in 2014.

Mayang’s remains were found in stockpots and a washing machine inside her apartment that she shared with her partner on 4th October 2014. Many reports focused on the horror of what was found inside the apartment, but in doing so, they forgot the person at the centre of the story.

Mayang was 27 years old. She was living far from home, trying to build a life, and like so many victims whose identities don’t fit neatly into what society finds respectable, she was not always treated with dignity after her death.

This episode is not just about a murder. It is about intimate partner violence, migrant vulnerability, transphobia, sex work stigma, and the damage done when the media turns a victim into a headline.

This case takes us back to January 1979, inside a quiet flat in Geylang Bahru, Singapore, where four young siblings were left at home while their parents went to work.

But sometime during those hours, something unthinkable happened inside that home. When the children were later found, all four had been brutally killed, their lives taken in a way that shocked the entire nation. The investigation that followed was extensive, with dozens of people questioned and countless leads explored, yet despite all efforts, no one was ever brought to justice. Decades later, the case still lingers in Singapore’s memory

It is tragically another case in Singapore that remains unsolved….

In January 1998, 23-year-old Jenjira Ployangunsri, a medical student with her whole future ahead of her, disappeared.

Days later, parts of a dismembered body began to surface.

What followed was a nationwide investigation that gripped Thailand, one that would not only uncover a deeply disturbing crime but also mark one of the first uses of DNA forensics in the country.

And at the centre of it all...was her boyfriend.

Another medical student.

What had happened behind closed doors would soon become one of the most chilling cases in Thailand’s modern history.

In the middle of the Pacific Ocean, far beyond the reach of land, help, or escape. A fishing vessel drifted through international waters. On board were dozens of men, isolated, exhausted, and thousands of miles from home. There was no signal, no authority, and no way off.

Over the course of several weeks, the crew began turning on each other. Men were beaten and thrown overboard, left to disappear into the ocean. By the time the ship returned to port, more than twenty crew members were dead. And what had unfolded on board would later be described as one of the most disturbing cases of violence ever recorded at sea.

On the evening of July 26th, 2014, police officers in the quiet Japanese city of Sasebo entered a residential apartment expecting to investigate a missing teenager.

What they found inside stopped every officer in their tracks.

The body of a 15-year-old girl lay on the floor.

Her head had been severed. Her hand was removed. And Blood was splattered all over the room.

And to their utter horror… sitting coldly and calmly inside the same room was another 15-year-old girl, her classmate.

When police questioned the girl about the sinister scene… her explanation sent shockwaves through Japan.

Because she said she had always wondered what it would feel like…

to kill someone.

In October 2000, 24-year-old Noor Suzaily Mukhtar boarded a bus in Kuala Lumpur on her way to work. She had recently returned from the United Kingdom after graduating from De Montfort University and had just begun her career as a computer engineer. It should have been an ordinary morning commute.

Instead, the bus driver diverted from the usual route.....

What followed shocked Malaysia, a brutal crime carried out in broad daylight, in a space meant to be safe. The case ignited national outrage, led to changes in public transport policies, and became part of larger debates about women’s safety and capital punishment.