Who Killed Haing Ngor?

Haing Ngor’s life reads like a Greek tragedy — promise, loss, survival, and a final act no one can quite explain. People who knew him describe a man split between warmth and arrogance, humanitarian impulses and anger.  Plus there was his untreated trauma. LAPD claimed Ngor’s murder was a robbery gone wrong. But nearly every part of that narrative collapses under scrutiny.  So do the other narratives – a Khmer Rouge assassination; a murder linked to the timber mafia; the murky question of involvement by Prime Minister Hun Sen. This episode recaps the “known unknowns” - the unanswered questions that shape the last years of Ngor’s life. This is the last episode of season 2’s investigative arc.  From eliminating known suspects, we’ll pivot to advancing the investigation.  Season 3 will be out in early 2026.   *** A BONUS EPISODE WILL DROP IN DECEMBER 2025 ***  

Haing Ngor was a doctor – launched into an unlikely career as an actor and activist. When Cambodia opened up in the early 1990’s, he decided he was also a businessman.  He bought a saw mill – an investment in forestry: one of the most dangerous economic sectors there is, run by the “timber mafia.”  Top players in that mafia? Ngor’s own brother, Chan Sarun, and Prime Minister Hun Sen.  That may sound like Ngor had it easy. But he was dogged by the same financial turbulence that characterized nearly all his efforts in Cambodia’s post-war “compassion fad” economy.  Was it nostalgia? Naïveté? Or did Ngor think he had what it takes to swim with the sharks?

Being a movie star allowed Haing Ngor to make new friends - and to connect with old ones he thought he had lost. In this episode, Patricia Nunan talks to Ngor’s Hollywood agents, who knew the eager actor happy to take any job to finance his humanitarian work in Cambodia. She also connects with CC, a friend from Ngor’s student days, who knew both his warmhearted and arrogant sides. CC offers vivid details about Ngor’s tumultuous life in Cambodia - including the steady stream of death threats he was receiving - in the seven months before he was killed.

Jason Chan is one of the trio of gang-members who, in 1998, were convicted of killing Haing Ngor.  Prosecutors said Chan was holding the gun – because somebody had to be. The jury didn’t buy it – but he still got life without parole. Join Patricia Nunan has she shares parts of her nearly two-year text conversation with Chan, a client of the Innocence Center.

In the 1990s, Cambodia became the world’s newest “compassion fad” — a post-conflict boomtown flooded with aid groups, investors, and opportunists. Haing Ngor was one of many who returned, hoping to rebuild his country. Instead, he found himself caught in a feud – with another humanitarian. In this episode, Patricia Nunan opens her exploration of Ngor’s financial turbulence in the years before his murder.