No. 31 Granville Road

In May 1999, No. 31 Granville Road became the site of a brutal crime that shocked Hong Kong and drew international media attention. Fan Man-yee, a 23-year-old hostess, was abducted by three triad members over an unpaid debt. She was held captive for over a month in a third-floor apartment, subjected to systematic physical torture, and eventually killed.

Following her death, the perpetrators dismembered her body in the apartment's bathtub and disposed of most of her remains in public refuse sites across Kowloon. In a bizarre attempt to conceal evidence, her severed skull was sewn inside the head of a large mermaid-style Hello Kitty soft toy that decorated the living room sofa. The crime was uncovered when a 13-year-old female accomplice, haunted by nightmarish visions of the victim, confessed the murder details to her social worker, leading police to raid the apartment.

In December 2000, the three men were convicted of manslaughter and unlawful imprisonment and sentenced to life imprisonment by the High Court of Hong Kong. Following the trial, the apartment remained unrented and vacant as neighboring tenants progressively moved out due to intense fear. In 2012, property developers demolished the entire 1950s four-story tenement building. The site was subsequently redeveloped into a modern boutique hotel tower which opened in 2016.

The urban legends surrounding 31 Granville Road began almost immediately after police uncovered the gruesome crime scene. In the months following the raid, shopkeepers operating ground-floor clothing boutiques below reported seeing CCTV footage of a translucent, female figure with long dark hair roaming inside closed shops long after business hours. Other security camera feeds captured images of a pale female face staring out from the vacant third-floor apartment windows into the busy street below.

Another famous legend involves phantom Hello Kitty dolls and ghostly crying. Residents living in adjacent tenement buildings along Granville Road reported hearing soft weeping, agony wails, and scratching noises emanating from the empty third-floor apartment late at night when all access was sealed by police tape. Local passersby claimed that on full moon nights, a faint ghostly image of a giant plush doll would appear near the window ledge, surrounded by a faint green ethereal light and cold mist. Local feng shui experts claimed the spirit was unable to pass into the afterlife due to the traumatic nature of her death.

Even after the building's complete demolition in 2012 and subsequent hotel construction in 2016, hotel staff and guests have shared eerie accounts. Hotel guests staying on the third floor report seeing spectral shadows in bathroom mirrors, hearing unexplainable knocking on doors, and experiencing sudden cold gusts of wind in fully enclosed rooms.

Paranormal researchers, local shopkeepers, and hotel guests have documented persistent supernatural occurrences at the 31 Granville Road site. Ground-floor retail staff frequently reported electronic cash registers turning on by themselves overnight, clothing mannequins changing positions when the shops were locked, and unexpected cold spots near the staircase entrance.

Demolition workers who cleared the original building structure in 2012 reported experiencing extreme nausea, heavy chest pressure, and equipment breakdowns when operating heavy machinery near the third-floor apartment footprint. Several workers refused to enter the site after dark, citing the sensation of being watched by multiple hostile unseen entities.

Modern hotel guests staying at the redeveloped property report experiencing sleep paralysis, unexplainable flickering of room lights, electronic door keycard glitches, and television sets switching onto static channels at 3:00 AM. Local tour operators leading Hong Kong dark tourism night walks frequently stop outside the site to share its chilling history with visitors.

The original building at No. 31 Granville Road was a classic 1950s four-story Hong Kong 'Tong Lau' (tenement building) characterized by narrow concrete staircases, open verandah balconies, high timber ceilings, high window sills, iron window grilles, and mixed ground-floor retail space with residential units above.

Following its complete 2012 demolition, the site was entirely cleared and redeveloped into a modern multi-story commercial and hotel building tower. The new structure features a contemporary glass and steel facade, state-of-the-art security systems, soundproofed hotel rooms, electronic keycard access, glass elevators, and public retail spaces, completely replacing the physical footprint of the original 1950s tenement building.

No. 31 Granville Road is located in the heart of Tsim Sha Tsui's bustling shopping district in Kowloon. It is easily accessible via the MTR Tsim Sha Tsui Station (Exit B2) or East Tsim Sha Tsui Station (Exit N2), followed by a 3-minute walk along Granville Road.

The location now operates as a private commercial hotel property. The exterior facade and ground-floor shopping street are accessible to the public 24 hours daily. Visitors should note that while the original murder apartment building was demolished in 2012, the site remains a major focal point for urban legend tours and criminal history researchers.

No. 31 Granville Road achieved infamous haunted status due to the shocking brutality of the 1999 Hello Kitty murder, which deeply traumatized public consciousness in Hong Kong. The horrific details of the crime, combined with decades of persistent CCTV ghost sightings and phantom weeping, established the location as one of Hong Kong's most terrifying urban legends and dark tourism landmarks.