Who Killed Haing Ngor?

Patricia Nunan begins to explore the question of which triad or organized crime syndicate had the capacity to carry out a killing in the United States.
That search leads to another case: the 1984 assassination of Taiwanese-American journalist Henry Liu, carried out by members of the Bamboo Union — a powerful triad with a history of transnational violence.
The parallels are circumstantial but also  -- hard to ignore. Two prominent Asian Americans. Both gunned down in California.
This is a mini “cheat sheet” episode to introduce a complicated story. It sets the stage for a deeper investigation into the Bamboo Union, and its presence in Cambodia during the years leading up to Ngor’s death.
The next episode, “Original Gangsters,” drops Friday, May 8, 2026.
 

The Man We Call “Larry”
Welcome to the launch of season three of Who Killed Haing Ngor. This season, we dive deeper into a key question: 
If Haing Ngor was killed in Los Angeles, because of something that happened in Cambodia — then who had the reach to do that?  The answer is a triad – a transnational organized criminal group.Enter “Larry.” He was a business partner of Ngor’s. When a deal over a bank license fell apart, “Larry” threatened Ngor, saying he knew professional killers. A few months later, Ngor was dead. The LAPD focused on “botched robbery” narrative – locking up three teenaged gang-members. But authorities never seriously investigated “Larry.”
Join Patricia Nunan as she works with the Innocence Center to explore Ngor’s turbulent final months. Her goal is - hopefully - to bring justice to the three men wrongfully convicted of his murder, and to finally do justice to Ngor’s memory.

The Killing Fields is often described as a film that changed history.In Cambodia, it served a more practical purpose.Before modern international courts, commissions of inquiry, or formal human-rights mechanisms were in place, the film became one of the few ways a devastated country could convey what had happened — and why the Khmer Rouge could not be allowed to return to power.In this - season 2's bonus episode of Who Killed Haing Ngor - Patricia Nunan revisits the film through firsthand accounts, exploring how "history is a living thing."

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.

Patricia Nunan sits down with journalist Roger Warner — Ngor’s close friend and co-author of A Cambodian Odyssey. Together, they explore how karma, revenge, and untreated PTSD shaped Ngor’s life after he survived the Khmer Rouge and became an internationally recognized actor and activist.  
In some ways, it’s almost as if the universe was hinting that Ngor was on thin ice.
⚠️ Contains descriptions of Khmer Rouge torture and violence.

In 1996, Oscar-winning actor and Khmer rouge survivor Haing S. Ngor was gunned down outside his home in Los Angeles. His murder gave rise to a conspiracy theory - that the Khmer Rouge sent assassins to silence their most famous critic.This episode dismantles that myth - and examines how it stopped the right questions from being asked. ⚠️ Contains descriptions of Khmer Rouge torture and violence.