On June 2, 1985, Officer Daniel Wright of the San Francisco Police Department was dispatched to a lumber yard where shoplifting had just occurred. Upon arrival, a store employee informed the officer that an Asian man had hidden a bench vise in his jacket and was observed placing it in the trunk of a 1980 Honda Prelude, and when the employee attempted to question the The man quickly fled on foot. . Officer Wright examined the vehicle and discovered a bag containing a pistol with a silencer. At this point a bearded man approached the officer with a sales receipt claiming that he had paid for the habit his friend had taken. Officer Wright questioned the bearded man after discovering that he had someone else's license and the vehicle's license plate had been switched. Wright recovered the silenced gun from the vehicle after placing the bearded man under arrest. At the department the bearded man was further questioned by Officer Wright. About 30 minutes into the interrogation the bearded man asked for a pen and paper along with a glass of water. The man later identified himself as Leonard Lake and declared himself a fugitive wanted by the FBI. He also identified the Asian man as Charlie Chitat Ng. Lake later stated, "I didn't think a bad bench vise would get me to this." Without saying anything else, Lake put the letter he had written to his wife in his pocket, then quickly pulled out and swallowed something from under a tag on his shirt. The substance sent Lake into convulsions that resulted in Lake's death a few days later. The substance was later identified as two cyanide capsules. When Officer Wright took an inventory of the seized vehicle, his findings ranged from spent bullet casings to blood, identification documents and… half of a document… student visa to study in the United States. Upon arriving in the United States, Charles did not last long at Notre Dame College, dropping out during his first semester. After doing so he enlisted in the United States Marine Corp. claiming to have been born in the United States. Charles' military career was cut short after he was caught stealing a large quantity of weapons. When he was held in custody, Ng managed to escape and return to California. It was there that he met Leonard Lake, also a former Marine. That's when the two became an ugly mix in society. When the two met, they were both already career criminals. It is assumed that once they became familiar, they began to fuel each other's sadistic-sexual desires to inflict pain and death on others. The actual number of deaths is presumed to be between nineteen and twenty-five between Lake and Ng..