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Harrowing videotape shown in Ng mass murder case

SAN ANDREAS, Calif. -- Prosecutors showed a harrowing videotape Friday that depicts mass murder suspect Charles Ng and a friend tormenting kidnapped sex slaves at their mountain hideaway.

The courtroom was closed to the public and press while the videotape was shown to Calaveras County Justice Court Judge Douglas Mewhinney and families of Ng's alleged victims.

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The videotape was found buried near the Wilseyville cabin where Ng is accused of killing 11 people with his alleged accomplice, survivalist Leonard Lake, during the mid-1980s. Ng is also charged with a 12th murder in San Francisco.

A transcript of the videotape shows Ng and Lake threatening to torture and kill two women, who appear to be handcuffed, unless they submit to sexual demands.

'While you're here, we'll keep you busy. You'll wash for us. You'll clean for us, cook for us, you'll (have sex) for us. It's not much of a choice unless you've got a death wish,' Lake told one victim, 18-year- old Kathleen Allen.

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'If you dont go along with us, we'll probably take you into the bed, tie you down, rape you, shoot you, and bury you. Sorry lady. Time's up. Make your choice,' Lake told the woman, according to the transcript.

Allen, who was the girlfriend of a former cellmate of Ng's at Fort Leavenworth military prison, later replied: 'I'll go along with whatever you want. Excuse me for being shy.'

Allen's sister, Diane Montemurro, attended the court hearing but did not view the videotape after discussing its contents with prosecutors.

'I don't want to see the pain that she went through. Just hearing about it was bad enough,' Montemurro said.

The videotape also shows Ng using a bayonet to cut off a bra worn by a second victim, 19-year-old Brenda O'Connor, who begs for her baby.

'Why do you guys do this? You can't keep my baby from me for sex,' O'Connor tells Ng and Lake, according to the transcript.

Ng tells O'Connor: 'You can cry and stuff like the rest of them, but it won't do you no good. We are pretty, ha ha, coldhearted, so to speak. '

No acts of violence are shown on the videotape, which was played during a preliminary hearing to determine if Ng will stand trial on the murder charges. Lake swallowed a cyanide pill and committed suicide when police began questioning him about the murders in 1985.

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Detectives found more than 40 pounds of charred human bones buried around Lake's cabin in Wilseyville, along with a cinderblock bunker that prosecutors allege was a sex-torture chamber.

Ng, 31, a former Marine, fled to Canada when Lake was arrested and became the focus of an international manhunt. He was caught one month later during a bungled shoplifting attempt at a Canadian department store and extradited to the United States last year after a lengthy international jurisdictional battle centered on Canada's opposition to the death penalty. Canada's highest court ultimately ruled Canada cannot impose its constitutional ban on executions on other nations, and that to do so could result in Canada becoming a haven for killers.

Ng's preliminary hearing will resume Wednesday, when Mewhinney is scheduled to hear a motion by defense lawyers to free Ng from a cage in the jury room where he is kept while awaiting courtroom appearances.

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