Leonard Lake and Charles Ng kidnapped, tortured, raped, and murdered anyone unfortunate enough to accept an invitation to their house and answer or post an ad in the newspaper. After murdering between 12 and 25 people (and possibly more), it was petty theft that ended up being their downfall.
where it began for police
On June 2, 1985, police were called to South City Lumber because an Asian man had attempted to steal a $75 table vice.When Officer Daniel Wright arrived, the Asian man had already taken off. A witness told him that when the man was confronted about the theft, he tossed the vise into the trunk of his brown Honda and ran. They looked in the man’s 1980 Honda Prelude and in the trunk was also what looked like a gun case. When Wright unzipped it, he saw a .22 caliber Ruger with a silencer that is 6-9” long. This modification to the gun was illegal.
As Wright was checking the car, another man came out of the store appearing agitated and told Wright that he’d paid for the vise and here’s the receipt. Nothing to see here. Wright’s supervisor arrived on the scene and agreed with Wright that the gun was suspicious. The Honda was impounded and the man was handcuffed and taken to the police station. On the way, the man ratted his friend out pretty quickly. He told the officer that the thief’s name was Charles Ng. A background check was run on Ng and the police figured out who he was, but they still didn’t know who this other man was.
Once they were at the station and the man was in a holding room, he told the police his name was Leonard Lake. He confessed to being a fugitive and offered to make a statement but first, he asked the guards for a piece of paper, a pencil, and a glass of water. Lake was then left alone. He used the water to swallow cyanide capsules that he had sewn into the collar of his shirt and when the officer returned, Lake was convulsing violently on the floor. He was taken to Kaiser Permanente Hospital where they determined there was no activity in his brain and he was on life support for 4 days. On June 6th, life support was turned off.
Instead of writing a statement, Lake had written a letter to a woman named, Lyn.
Why had Lake committed suicide? Police were confused and decided that the only way to figure it out was to put out a warrant for Ng and search the car to see if they could find any clues. The police ran the VIN on the Prelude which came back that the car was registered to Paul Cosner. Oh, and Paul Cosner was a San Francisco man who had also gone missing 7 months ago.
While searching the car, the police found a driver’s license for a man named, Robin Scott Stapley. They also found a stun gun and bullets and an electric bill for a woman named Claralyn Balazs. Finally, they found a bullet hole in the roof of the car with a trajectory that lined up with the bullet being shot from the back seat and Luminol showed blood spatter on the roof. The police knew that they weren’t going to find Paul Cosner alive. They just had no idea that what they found in that Honda was the tip of a really fucked up iceberg.
Leonard Lake
Leonard Thomas Lake was born on October 24, 1945, in San Francisco, California. When he was about 6-years-old, Lake’s parents split up and he and his siblings went to live with his grandparents. Lake was said to be a bright kid but had a strange fascination with pornography and nude photos. At a fairly young age, Lake began taking naked pictures of his sisters. This behavior was supposedly encouraged by his grandmother (according to multiple sources). Later he would “extort his sisters for sexual favors” (also, multiple sources). He also liked to gather mice and then kill them by dissolving them in chemicals. A skill that came in handy in his later escapades.
After graduating high school in 1964, 19-year-old Lake enlisted in the Marines. He became a radio operator and served 2 tours of duty in the Vietnam War. During his time in the Marines, Lake was diagnosed with “schizoid personality disorder” after having a “delusional breakdown.” In 1971, he was given a medical discharge and received psychotherapy.
Lake then moved to San Jose and he tried to further his education by enrolling at San Jose State University. Lake only lasted one semester before dropping out. He had become enthralled with a hippie commune, so he moved there and in 1975, he married his first wife. However, she found out he was making amateur porn with bondage and sadomasochism with himself as the lead actor and she left him. He spent the next 8 years living at the commune with a brief stint in prison for car theft in there somewhere.
In 1981, he married another woman, Claralyn “Cricket” Balasz who he had actually met in 1977 while working at a renaissance fair. But again, the marriage was short-lived. Lake’s behavior was becoming more and more erratic as he got her to star in some of his home-movies, but that would turn out to be the boiling point for Balazs.
Lake continued to decline mentally and became increasingly concerned (paranoid) about the nuclear holocaust he was sure was coming. He began building a bunker of sorts, but once the owner of the property found out, he forced Lake to stop. After Lake’s original landlord forced him to stop working on his bunker, Lake began renting a cabin from Balazs. In his diary, Lake wrote about “Operation Miranda” in 1983 when he rebuilt the “dungeon.”
This dungeon would be his bunker for the nuclear holocaust, but it would also be a place to act out his nightmarish sexual fantasies. At some point Lake invited his brother, Donald and his friend, Charles Gunnar over to the cabin. It’s not known if they went into the dungeon willingly or by force, but no matter how they went in, they didn’t leave. Neither man has ever been seen again. Lake stole all their cash and Gunnar’s ID which he began using… It’s reported that in 1981, Lake placed an ad in a war gamer or possibly a survivalist magazine, most likely to find a new victim, but instead found Charles Ng.
Charles Ng
Charles Chi-Tat Ng was born on December 24, 1960, in Hong Kong. His father was a Chinese executive, and they were a very well-off family. According to Ng, his father was abusive. Later when Ng was on trial, his parents came to testify in his defense, and his father admitted that he had been overly strict.
As a teen, Ng was described as a loner and got into trouble frequently. So frequently that he ended up getting expelled from numerous schools. When he was 15, he was arrested for shoplifting. His father decided that young Charles needed to go somewhere…away…(in the words of Jeff Foxworthy) getonouttahere. His dad sent him to boarding school in Yorkshire, England at Bentham Grammar. Surprisingly (not really), Ng continued to be a problem child and after stealing from other students he was quickly expelled and returned to Hong Kong.
In 1978, Ng moved to America on a student visa. He was enrolled at Notre Dame College in California but like his bro, Leonard Lake, he only lasted one semester. After leaving college, Ng was involved in a hit-and-run car accident and decided that in order to evade charges, he would join the Marines (just like Lake). You might be thinking, “Hey. Don’t you have to be a US citizen to join the Marines?” And you’d be right. Fortunately for Ng, this was the ‘70s and paperwork was easier to fake. Ng used false documents and enlisted in the Marines in 1979.
But within a year, Ng got into trouble when he was stationed in Hawaii. He stole automatic weapons (machine guns, revolvers, a night-scope, grenade launchers and other heavy weaponry) from the armory at MCAS Kaneohe Bay in Oahu. Ng was arrested and during the psychological evaluation he told them things like he’d “assassinated” someone in California, and that he laced the salt shakers in the mess hall with cyanide (no deaths or anything were ever reported), but he was afraid to face the court martial that was coming so he escaped and went AWOL. He was listed as a deserter.
Ng and Lake: BFFs
The beginning of Ng and Lake’s friendship is a little fuzzy. Some sources say that Ng served his prison sentence before he met Lake, and others say he was on the lam when he met Lake. Both men have Murderpedia pages, but each page says something a little different. Ng’s says that he was convicted for the theft and sentenced to 14 years, but his sentence was commuted and he was released in 1982 and then met Lake in 1983. Whereas Lake’s page just says that he met Ng in 1982.
The Biography.com page on Ng says that he served 3 years in Leavenworth Prison for the theft and upon his release, he moved in with Lake, but no mention of when and how they met. All Things Interesting says that Ng was dishonorably discharged in 1984 and moved in with Lake.
Military.wiki.org says that Lake placed an ad in a war gamer magazine in 1981 and that’s how they met, and when Ng was dishonorably discharged from the Marines in 1984, he invited Ng to move in with him.
THEN, The Big Book of Serial Killers says in Leonard Lake’s section that in 1982, Lake was arrested for a firearms violation and let out on bail, but he absconded and moved to his ex-wife, Balazs’ ranch and met Ng that year. And in Ng’s section it says that he went AWOL and found his way back to California and moved in with Lake. There the 2 men lived in a mobile home together until it was raided by federal authorities in 1982 and both were arrested. Ng was sent back to military custody and worked out a plea deal to serve 18-months in military prison. Lake was let out on bail, but ran and drifted around using aliases until he met back up with Ng.
THEN, the documentary says that Ng was arrested by the Marines for the weapons he stole and he escaped from prison. A friend told him to go stay with Lake and his wife. He stayed there for 6 months. But at this same time, the ATF was building a case against Lake for possession of illegal firearms. In the Spring of 1981, both were arrested by ATF. Lake ran and became a fugitive and Ng was sent back to prison to complete his sentence. He was released in 1984 and came straight back to California where he was picked up at the airport by Balazs.
The point is, Ng was dishonorably discharged from the Marines and also at some point these 2 weirdos unfortunately met and moved into a cabin on Balazs’ property where they would go on to do horrific things to people they knew.
Ng and Lake Get to Murderin’
Between 1983-1985, Lake and Ng used the bunker Lake had built to kidnap, rape, torture and murder people. It’s reported that they murdered between 12 and 25 people, but their exact body count is unknown. Police found the remains of 12 confirmed people on the property including corpses and parts of people, but the 40+ pounds of charred and crushed bone suggested that 12 was just a fraction of the real number of victims. Most of their victims were women who they had kidnapped in preparation for the nuclear holocaust, because they would need to repopulate the earth. Lake had the fantasy of locking women up as sex slaves that he would use when he wanted, and put her away when he was done.
However, it wasn’t just women that they kidnapped. They would keep men and women in their cinder block bunker that had a one-way mirror installed and only measured 6.5’ x 3.5’ with only a bucket and toilet paper. Lake and Ng would also kidnap families such as their neighbor Lonnie Bond, his girlfriend Brenda O’Connor, and their toddler son, Lonnie Jr. They also kidnapped Harvey and Deborah Dubs and their toddler son, Sean. The plan was to kill the men and children first (almost immediately) and save the women as their sex slaves for a while.
Women who were kidnapped were repeatedly held down and raped by the men. They tortured them physically, psychologically, and emotionally and would videotape it. Once Lake and Ng were tired of the women, they would kill them. Lake and Ng killed coworkers of Ng’s as well as friends and family members who would come over. They also sought out people under the guise of needing help or buying something using the newspaper want ads so that they would have to come to their cabin or the people would let them in their house.
In 1983, when Lake’s brother Donald disappeared, their mother reported him missing after he didn’t return from a visit with Lake. However, she said, “The world would be better without Don.” So I guess she wasn’t too concerned. 1983 was also when Charles Gunnar disappeared, and then Lake adopted his identity frequently using his ID and his name.
July 25, 1984, the Dubs family disappeared. 30-year-old Harvey, 33-year-old Deborah, and 16-month-old Sean Dubs had become victims of these psychos. They had been reported missing and the police saw clearly in their apartment that there had been signs of a struggle, and that the family had left unwillingly. Deborah’s medication that she had to take daily was left in the house, and they had locked their cats in the house.
In fact, the video equipment that was found in the dungeon was linked to Harvey. Why? Because Harvey was a professional wedding photographer and had placed an ad in the paper to rent out his video equipment. Guess who answered the ad…
Also in July of 1984, Donald Giuletti (36) was a fairly popular disc jockey in San Francisco when he reportedly answered an ad in a probably pretty sketchy adult magazine. The ad offered oral sex from an Asian male. He was later found shot 3 times in his home and his roommate was later able to identify Charles Ng as the man who answered the ad. In October of 1984 a man named Randy Jacobson (34) had gone to Lake’s to sell him his van. Jacobson’s girlfriend said that she had previously been propositioned by Lake and he offered to pay her to come take care of his marijuana farm, but she turned him down for both.
In November of 1984, 39-year-old Paul Cosner never showed up for his date with his girlfriend who told police that Paul was last seen giving a test drive to a man matching Lake’s description in a Honda Prelude Cosner had been trying to sell in the paper. In April of 1985, Ng’s friend from federal prison, 22-year-old Michael Carroll and his girlfriend, 18-year-old Kathleen Allen disappeared. Kathleen worked at a grocery store and the last time she was there, a co-worker overheard a phone conversation that she got from Michael. Michael “Mike” called her to tell her that he was in Lake Tahoe and had gotten shot. He told her that he was sending a friend to pick her up to bring her to Mike. She asked her supervisor for time off so she could go take care of this situation and a man came by to pick her up in a brown Honda. The supervisor described the man as 40s, bald but with dark hair and a beard. Neither Kathleen nor Mike were ever seen again. Her manager said he got a typed letter dated May 6th (3 weeks after she left that day) saying that she got another job and wouldn’t be coming back.
Kathleen was seen on their videotapes and Mike’s ID was one of the ones later found on the property. On the video, Kathleen was handcuffed and sitting in a chair and told that if she didn’t just do what the men wanted, they would take her to the bedroom and tie her to the bed. Then they said they would rape her, take her out back, put a bullet in her head, and bury her next to Mike.
Then in May of 1985, 27-year-old Lonnie Bond, his girlfriend, Brenda O’Connor, and their 18-month-old son Lonnie Bond, Jr. disappeared. They were the closest neighbors to Lake and Ng, but Brenda said she had seen Lake (who called himself “Gunnar”) burying a body in the woods so she, rightly, didn’t trust him. But, instead of calling the police or anything like that, Lonnie had his friend, 26-year-old, Scott Stapley come stay with them as an added layer of protection. On the video tapes, Brenda is tied to a chair begging for all of their lives. But Ng untied her and forced her to strip naked. Then Ng shackled her with leg irons and both Lake and Ng sexually abused her.
Investigation, Tracking Ng, Trial, Conviction
After searching the car, the police go visit Lake’s mother. At the house, they also find Claralyn Balazs, Lake’s ex-wife and the lady whose name was on the electric bill in Paul Cosner’s car. When they asked Balazs about the electric bill, she explained that the address on the bill was a cabin her family owned. The police wanted to search the cabin, obviously. But Balazs said she’s too busy to take them until tomorrow. The police were like, okaaaaaay. So they planned to meet her up there the next morning and told her, DO NOT go to the house in the meantime.
They obviously don’t trust that, so they call that county’s police station and ask them to send someone to guard the property until the morning. 2 officers were sent, and they staked out the entrance that was already gated off and locked up. BUT this county was super short staffed so they couldn’t be there for the full 24 hours. Instead they were only going to be staking out for like…a couple minutes and then someone else would swing by later for a bit and so on. They were just going to keep swinging by every once in a while.
Balazs and Lake’s mother met the officers the next morning at the Wilseyville post office and admitted that, yes, they did go to the cabin the night before, but only because Leonard is a messy guy, and they wanted to tidy up since company was coming. Once on the property, the police noticed a cinder block bunker and were like, Hey. Uh…What’s that? Balazs basically said, don’t worry about that. She didn’t have the key to the bunker and she wouldn’t give police permission to search it. Without probable cause they wouldn’t get a warrant, so they had to just be nice and work with Balazs so they could get in the cabin for now. While looking through the cabin, the detectives noticed that the bed had holes drilled in the headboard and footboard as if built specifically to tie someone to the bed.
Detectives continued looking around when one noticed video equipment. Coincidentally, this was the same equipment from the Dubs’ house. Now they have the car of Paul Cosner, the ID of Robin Scott Stapley, and now the video equipment from the Dubs’. All people who have disappeared. Balazs started getting fidgety and decided it was time for the police to leave. Now the investigators needed a warrant, but before they left the house they secured the property this time. They have plenty of probable cause now and were able to obtain a warrant that same day.
When police returned to Lake’s cabin, they were able to pick the lock and get into the “fallout shelter”/bunker. They were not ready for what they found.
What’s in the cabin and bunker?!
For part two, please click here!
sources for this episode
The Big Book of Serial Killers: An Encyclopedia of Serial Killers by Jack Rosewood
Serial Killers: Leonard Lake and Charles Ng (Crime Documentary)
