Old friends - the transcript

In the first season of my podcast, I ended each episode with a request:

If you knew Haing Ngor personally and would like to contribute – even just an interesting anecdote - please get in touch.  If you know any details about his murder you think are relevant, please get in touch. 

Finally, someone did. And she was a goldmine.  

My name is Patricia Nunan – and this is Who Killed Haing Ngor.

CC: He very ambitious. Especially he said to my father and my brother said, Look, my aim is my life. If I like somebody to address me as “doctor,” so I do absolutely anything to get the title “doctor” in front of my name.

This is CC.  She’s asked me not to use her name; just her initials. She was born and raised in Cambodia’s capital, Phnom Penh. She was about 18 when the Khmer Rouge took over in 1975, and her life was upended.

A quick note: there are moments when some of my listeners might find CC’s accent a little bit tricky. But this is a very important g interview – it’s quite revealing about the last year of Ngor’s life. So I’m posting a transcript this on the “Who Killed Haing Ngor” webpage.

CC lives in Australia now. It was actually her daughter who first reached out - I’m going to call her Jane. “The Killing Fields” is such an important movie, that many Cambodians or people of Khmer heritage watch it every year, around January 7th. That’s the anniversary of when the Khmer Rouge were overthrown, in 1979.  

After Jane’s rewatch, she came across my podcast. She emailed me about her “Uncle Haing,” whom she had met on a visit to Cambodia when she was about 12. We realized very quickly that her mom could be helpful to my investigation. CC’s friendship with Ngor goes back to adolescence. 

 In case you didn’t know? Jackfruit is a tropical fruit known for its rough exterior.

MPN: What were some nicknames you had?

CC: Well, just. I'm just being honest with you - because of his appearance, especially his facial appearance, because he have the residue mark of the pimples, and a very bad mark, yes. And we call him “jackfruit.”

MPN:  Oh, no, that's so mean.

CC: It's so mean. And we call him that. We call him that? Yes, we call him. At first, he kind of growled at us. But he got used to it.

MPN: So what kind of guy was he? 

CC: He’s a loudmouth, I must say. He liked to be heard.

Ngor dated CC’s older sister, toward the end of high school and into his medical school. Outside the US, med school often starts right after high school – during what Americans would call “undergrad.” CC’s sister eventually broke up with him. But Ngor remained close with the entire family.

Ngor was from Takeo province. In Phnom Penh, CC’s mother just about adopted him. That’s even after he started dating someone new. He used to get around town by motorbike. It was a white Vespa.

CC: He always respect[ed] my mother. Because when he was in medical school, he [was] always on his Vespa, come to my house, have lunch there, lie in the hammock under the tree there, study whatever he need to study. He eat, he drink and study there and go back to school at 2 o'clock in the afternoon. So the gap from 12 to 2, mostly he was there. We see him at least three times a week.

Then, in April 1975, the Khmer Rouge took over, and Cambodia turned itself inside out. CC was one of nine children in her nuclear family; part of a generation with more than a dozen cousins. She lost virtually everyone.

The Khmer Rouge were overthrown in 1979, and CC escaped to a refugee camp. She was now in her early 20’s. Her friends urged her to marry. They knew a guy, who seemed nice -  and CC needed to team up with someone if she was going to survive. So she married him.

Fortunately, CC’s husband was a decent man. They were eventually resettled in Australia, and had three children. Years went by. One day, CC picked up a magazine, called “TV Week.”

CC: And I saw that when they making “The Killing Fields,” I saw his picture, maybe 1984, 85. And I saw. I said, “Oh.” I said to my husband, I said, “I know this man. That's Ngao Haing. I know him.” Whoever cast him, he cast the right person because that man is just everything  -  he can do anything.

You probably noticed – CC just pronounced Haing Ngor’s name correctly, the way Cambodians do – Ngao Haing.  I’ve been using the Westernized version.

A few years later, a local charity held a screening of “The Killing Fields,” followed by a reception. Every Cambodian CC knew went to see it. Ngor was there.

 CC:  And when I went there, I saw him, and I walked to him.  And when he saw me, he walked straight to me with his arms open -  and he said, “Where's Mom?”

MPN: Oh, that's so lovely.

CC got up from our Zoom call and went to get some tissues.

CC: He said, Where's Mum? I said, Mum gone. And he got tears in his eyes and he hugged me.

[BREAK]

I wanted to share CC’s story with you for a couple of reasons. Being a movie star helped reunite Ngor with lost friends and family.  And Ngor was capable of tremendous warmth. Others remember an angry, outspoken man.

CC knew them both. After all, they went so far back, she used to tease him about his acne.

In 1994, CC’s husband died. The following year, she and her children took his ashes home to Cambodia. CC’s daughter Jane was around 12, so for her and her siblings, Australian kids, it was something of a “roots” tour.

I want to emphasize the date. This trip happened in July 1995 – 7 months before Ngor was killed.  During that visit, which lasted about two-three weeks, CC and her kids hung out with him nearly the entire time.

[BREAK] 

MARION ROSENBERG: I remember him being very excited, very charming, always. He always used to say, no matter what time of day, what day it was, whatever it was, that his first words were always, “I'm so busy. I'm busy, busy.” “Busy, busy – that’s what he always used to say.

This is Marion Rosenberg. She’s another old friend of Ngor’s. She was his film and television agent in Los Angeles. She worked at the Lantz office, before opening up her own agency, the Marion Rosenberg Office.  I interviewed her and her former assistant Greg Maher together over Zoom.

Marion ROSENBERG: :  I received a phone call one morning from a very dear friend of mine, David Puttnam, who was the producer of “The Killing Fields.” He called me from London to say that the Academy Award nominations have just been announced. And much to everybody's delight and surprise, Haing Ngor had been nominated for a Best Supporting Actor award. Haing had no representation. He didn't have an agent. So I immediately told David Puttnam that I would be delighted to represent him, help him through the Academy Awards, and then see if he had the possibility of an acting career in front of him. And indeed, he did.

After "The Killing Fields," Ngor had several more roles. “Heaven and Earth,” by Oliver Stone; “My Life,” with Michael Keaton. There were television roles on “Miami Vice,” and “Highway to Heaven,” and too many other credits to name.  Here’s Greg Maher.

MAHER: He sort of got typecast into playing like the Vietnamese general or the colonel, so, and so or - I don't think it really really bothered him so much. It's just, I think, there weren't like a lot of those kind of roles. So when they came up, he clearly, you know, wanted to work and he just sort of did them.

As clients go, Ngor was pretty low maintenance.

MAHER: He never played like the movie star. He was just, just Haing, you know, he wanted, he wanted to do more work, he wanted to make some more money and, you know, support the stuff that he was trying to do back home.

There’s one job Ngor did, for which he really didn’t mind being stereotyped. He played a Buddhist monk. You can find it on YouTube, if you search “IBM 1995 television commercial - monks.” Ngor is the second monk who appears.

 MAHER:  I remember him being a little bit unnerved by the fact that he had to shave his head. But my recollection is it was – it was quite a bit of money - and that, I think, assuaged his doubt about having to shave.

MPN: Yeah, I found that on YouTube, actually. I can send you the link. He's one of many Buddhist monks and it's IBM and they're communicating telepathically. It's a joke about how how smart IBM is.

Greg MAHER: That’s right. I remember now. That’s good.

MPN: Yeah, I was able to find that on YouTube.

Marion ROSENBERG: Yeah, he was very well paid for that. And if I can get to my files downstairs, I could actually tell you what it was paid for that.

MPN: I would love to know those numbers, actually, because we have to look into his debt issues.

Greg MAHER: I think I can remember it was a million bucks.

MPN: He made a million bucks from one commercial?

Marion ROSENBERG: No way.

Greg MAHER: Yes, I think so. I think so. Wait till you go find that slip.

Marion ROSENBERG: Are you telling me we made $100,000 out of that commercial?

Greg MAHER: I think we did.

MPN: Wow, that's a lot of money. I'd shave my head for a million dollars.

For the record, $1 million in 1995 is $2.1 million today.

Unfortunately, Rosenberg wasn’t able to locate Ngor’s booking slips. But they both remember he earned a significant sum – so I’m incorporating into my understanding of Ngor’s financial picture. Even if it were half that -- $500 thousand then, or a million dollars now -  or a quarter million, even -- the monk commercial represented a windfall.

Of course, no one knew it at the time. But playing a Buddhist monk in an IBM commercial was Ngor’s last ever acting job.  

[BREAK]

Back in Cambodia -- the first thing Jane remembered about meeting her Uncle Haing? He often wore a cap, because he was growing out a buzzcut, from when he played the monk. I asked CC about it. 

MPN: So that. That monks commercial - did he tell you how much he made from that?

CC:  No, did not. He just said look - or said, or “You will see me dressed as a monk. I do the IBM commercial. IBM computer commercial.” I said, “Okay.”

The larger question of Ngor’s finances are among the many details I’ve been sifting through from the last couple of years of his life.  In Cambodia, he had a lot of irons in the fire.  

 To reiterate, here’s a quick list of some of Ngor’s projects and investments.

Ngor helped founded at least two small ngo’s: “Children of Angkor,” to support childhood education, and “Aid to Displaced Persons,” for refugees.

He built at least two schools and he restored a road in his home province, projects for which he teamed up with Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen.  He restored at least one more school in the capital. He built a temple, and a small bridge. He bought properties, like an apartment – along the river He bought the villa that he intended use for the Haing Ngor Foundation. That’s the property that caused the feud with another humanitarian, that I went over my “Compassion Fad” episode.

He opened a small trucking company. He bought saw mill – so he could dive into Cambodia’s forestry sector.  And according to CC, he also had a stake in two small hotels.

CC deliberately chose not to ask Ngor about his investments. She didn’t want to know any details. She knew he had business partners from Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore. She does not know any names.

One thing she knew for sure, though? Ngor was skating on thin ice. 

CC: But I should say he was not a popular man back there.

MPN: He was not. Why?

CC :  Wherever he goes, there always the gun under his seat.

MPN:  I'm sorry, say again? He had a gun?

CC:  Under his car seat.

MPN:  He was afraid for his life?

CC: Yes.

MPN: This is in ‘95?

CC: He said sometime he afraid to pick up the phone because there's so many threat. I said, “Oh.” I said, “Look, it’s too much, [if you] can't stand [it,] get out of here. There's no reason to be here if you under threat all the time.”

CLIP:  MPN. So who was threatening him?

CC:  I don't know. But he said, because he said “I don't know how long I last here because there's so many threats against me.” I said, “Why you are here? If [there are] so many threats?” He said, “I don’t know. But I want to be here.”

CC’s point of view is significant, because as a Cambodian, she was sensitive to the cultural dynamics at play.  It was why I was so keen to talk to her after Jane reached out.

Even thought she was trying not to, she actually knew some details about Ngor’s businesses and social circles. Like the lumber mill Ngor bought.  He took CC and the kids out to the site, because it was along a river, so the kids could swim. 

CC:  No, there's not much there. There's a little thing. There's a bench there. There's a few logs there and everything. But it's not ready to operate. MPN: But were there machines there for working on the timber?
CC: Scarcely. I think one or two. One or two. That's why I said he never got [it] off the ground.

And that’s all she knew. But we’re coming back to the lumber mill soon.  

[BREAK]

I want to take a break from my interview with CC to bring back Dorothy Chow.  We met her in my second episode, the “Khmer Rouge Misdirect.”  That’s when I debunked the conspiracy theory that the Khmer Rouge killed Haing Ngor.

Chow’s parents escaped the Khmer Rouge, and later resettled in northern California, where she was born. Her podcast, “Death in Cambodia  - Life in America,” is about her father’s experience surviving the Khmer Rouge, and starting over again, in the States.

Chow has spearheaded support groups for people like her – the adult children of refugees. The goal is to help people understand their parents’ PTSD - to stem the tide of intergenerational trauma.

Chow’s too young to remember the murder of Haing Ngor. But her father remembered it well. 

CHOW: Whatever the news outlets said, and whatever stories are being we're being told, he believed that it was somebody within the Cambodian community. There's this narrative within the Cambodian community that like, “We don't support each other, and we're always dragging each other down.” If you're familiar with the concept of crabs in a bucket, where if one crab tries to get up, the other crabs are going to try to keep him down, and everybody stays down. It's unfortunate, and it's something that the second generation is trying to change. But he very much believed that it was somebody within the Cambodian community who could not stand to watch one of their fellow Cambodians be so successful. 

[BREAK]

Back in Cambodia – it’s July 1995 – seven months before Ngor’s murder. He kept a gun under the seat of his car. He was getting so many death threats, he hated answering the phone.

One thing the Innocence Center and I already knew was that Ngor was running with a very tough crowd.

Ngor’s brother is Chan Sarun. I’ve mentioned him before – he was the Director of Forestry – an extremely powerful post in a very dangerous economic sector.

Ngor had done development projects with Prime Minister Hun Sen.

Here’s something I didn’t know. Ngor’s had a mentor named Chea Sim. He was the president of the Cambodian People’s Party, the CPP, making him a top aide to Hun Sen. 

Chea Sim had an adult daughter, who was single. And she had a big fat crush – on Ngor.  It’s something CC teased him about.

CC: Everyone knew that one of Chea Sim’s daughter loves him, wants to be with him. And I teased him and said, “Hey, why not?” And he just growled at me and said, “Look, I'm not that stupid.”

“I’m not that stupid.”  That’s stands out to me. Ngor had an opportunity to marry into the Cambodian elite. But to him, that would be dumb.

Ngor was a bundle of contradictions. That’s one thing this investigation is making clear.

His warmth alternated with abrasiveness. He lost his wife – and the love of his life - to the Khmer Rouge; a loss so painful he never got past it. Later, he didn’t have a problem with sleeping around. 

Still – he had a strong moral code. He never evicted the orphanage squatting on his property, even though he had the law and powerful players on his side.  That’s from the “Compassion Fad” episode.

Given the chance, some might leap at a marriage of convenience, to ascend to Cambodia’s most elite circles. Ngor seems to have known how toxic and dangerous that would be.  To me, that’s important.

He didn’t pursue it. Instead, he put up with receiving a steady-stream of death threats on his phone.   

[BREAK]

As Ngor’s friend Roger Warner, and now CC have both shared, Ngor could be an arrogant jerk – especially to Cambodians.

On trips to the provinces, where Ngor had projects, CC said ordinary Cambodians loved him, because “The Killing Fields” told their story so magnificently well. To them, he was a hero. 

In addition to that “crabs in a bucket” dynamic, there was another issue at play. Cambodia had just opened up after decades of bloodshed and isolation. Tension often arose between Cambodians who came home after the peace deal was signed, and those who had stayed behind through the bitter years of civil war. This is not just about Ngor. This was widespread.

Roland Eng is a former Ambassador at Large for the Royal Government of Cambodia.

ROLAND ENG: And they introduce themselves like, you know, “I'm American-Cambodian.” So this is the mindset. You have to shift the mindset. Psychologically it’s very, very important. And it is understanding that those people who were not able to leave the country during the war have suffered during the whole period of instability in Cambodia. Yeah, they have resentment there. You left the country, You're a traitor. You're having a good life when we're suffering. This is a normal process. I mean, this is life. It's happening all around the country, all over the country.

When the Khmer Rouge were ousted – it was by Vietnam. They invaded in 1979 and occupied Cambodia for a decade. 

In fact, it was communist Vietnam that installed the government run by Prime Minister Hun Sen, Chea Sim and to a lesser extent, Ngor’s brother, Chan Sarun. These are big names in the Cambodian People’s Party – the CPP, which came to power after the Khmer Rouge.

These are the people Ngor associated with. And that makes perfect makes sense:  Ngor came home and reconnected with his brother. 

Now  - the Khmer Rouge were obviously extremists. But for Chan Sarun and others in the CPP, there was a lingering belief that communism could be done right.  Or at least, what was evolving into Vietnamese-style socialism.

Here’s what blows my mind:  Ngor used to actually start conversations in which he openly dissed communism and praised capitalism, according to CC.

That made a lot of people angry, including his brother.

Here, CC’s doing an impression of Ngor.

CC:  “I'm an American, I become American now.” And they’re just freshly out of the communis[m]. “I don't like communists, blah, blah, blah.” That's a blasé attitude. I said, you can't go there and broadcast that: “I'm from the capitalism.”  I said to him, “You can’t be that blasé.”

MPN: So would you call that arrogance?

CC: Oh, too much - highly arrogant. Highly arrogant. Because he believed, deep down in his head, “I got American passport, I'm safe. That’s my protection.”  I said, “No, it's not. It's not.”

Around this time, Ngor fell out with his brother, Chan Sarun.

CC: .They had a big fight. The one that you know, broadcast capitalism and the one broadcast the other thing. So they’re just pole[s] apart.

Chea Sim died in 2015. Prime Minister Hun Sen stepped aside in 2023, in favor of his son, Hun Manet, who is now prime minster. Hun Sen is now president of the Cambodian senate. Chan Sarun is retired but remains a prominent figure. Again, I promise – we’re coming back to them.

[BREAK]

So after all this, who does CC think killed Haing Ngor? Of course, she doesn’t know.

CC: He just traumatized by so many things. I think he got involved in so many things that out of his control. Because he think that his name is so big. He just spread himself so thin. That's how I see it. He believed that, “I'm the big guy now. I'm famous. The only Cambodian that got an Oscar.” That’s in his system. Big head - become very big head.

MPN:  Because I'll tell you the one thing people ask me all the time is, if he died because of business issues in Cambodia, why wouldn't people kill him in Cambodia? Like  - why was it in America?

CLIP: CC:  It's too obvious. It’s too obvious. They can turn it into [a] political [issue]- and it can turn into something else. With ordinary people's sentiment toward him - that's why they don't want to do that. That's my opinion. I think that - all the people think that he's a hero. Over in the United States, it’s less likely to turn political.

Ngor’s enemies had to kill him in Los Angeles, because the popular uproar over the murder of this hero would requie action from the highest levels of government. In Cambodia, the killers would have to be caught. That’s CC’s take.   

[BREAK].

CC’s daughter Jane told me how she still remembers coming home from school one day to find her mother crying. She had heard the news that Ngor was dead. He was killed February 25, 1996 – again, seven months after CC took her family to Cambodia.

In the chaos and confusion surrounding his death, CC managed to connect with a girlfriend of Ngor’s in Phnom Penh. CC had not met her on her trip the previous July. But she was trying to get a sense of what happened, and someone gave her this woman’s phone number.

This girlfriend served as Ngor’s administrative assistant.  And she wanted to marry him.

CC:  She said to me that, “I really want to have a child with him, but him - because he's a doctor, he knows the way not to have a child with me.” That what she said to me. And “I really want to marry him, but he's just, you know, kind of slippery. He doesn't want that to happen.”

She even - what she told me: she borrowed money to prop up his business. That what she told me. I said, I asked her, I said, “If you don't mind, can you tell me how much?” She said, his debt about … under US$50,000 back then. I said, “Oh, that's a lot of money.” And she said, “I don't know, how can I find the money to repay that? Because every money that he borrowed [was] under my name.”

MPN: He borrowed money under her name. And then when he died, she was left with debt?

CC: That's right. That's what she told me.

Fifty thousand dollars in 1995 is over $105 thousand dollars today.

I know the woman CC’s talking about. She disappeared and was at one point presumed dead by Ngor’s family –they tried to find her when they were sorting out probate.

 But this woman managed to leave Cambodia, and she lives in the United States. In the nearly 30 years since Ngor’s death, I was the first to let CC know.

CC: Oh, that's good. I'm so glad. I'm so pleased to know that. Because she, she did everything for him and she was hoping she can go to live in the United States. If she could go, good on her. Good on her.

I’ve reached to this woman, to ask if she’d participate in this podcast, but I have never gotten a response. Frank, from the Innocence Center, tracked her down early in their investigation. They chatted for a few minutes. But when the subject turned to Ngor, suddenly - she didn’t speak English.

[BREAK]

For the record, neither Marion Rosenberg and Greg Maher bought the police narrative that Ngor was killed in a botched robbery.  It just seemed too convenient.  I’ll come back to them in future episodes.

 Now - let’s think back to the monks commercial, that Ngor did for IBM.  It may have earned him as much as $1 million -- or $900 thousand, after his agents took their 10 percent. Even without an exact figure, both Rosenberg and Maher remember, it was a windfall.

This means in July 1995, when Ngor was still growing out his shaven head from the monks commercial, he was cash-rich. He had liquidity. That’s in stark contrast to 1994, in the midst of the orphanage dispute. That’s when he told journalist Emilia Casella he simply didn’t have the money to rent another space.  

Then within seven months of his windfall, he was borrowing money in his girlfriend’s name. What on earth happened there? 

In my next episode, we’ll dive into Ngor’s investment in the forestry sector – a decision a lot of people link to his death.

My name is Patricia Nunan, and this is WKHN.

If you’d like to reach out, I’m at whokilledhaingngor at gmail dot com.  If you knew Haing Ngor, please get in touch.
I’m also on Telegram, as mpnunan

If you’d like to support the investigation, there’s a donation button on my webpage, at whokilledhaingngor dot-com. Also – I’m putting a transcript to this episode there, on the webpage.

Thank you for your support. And thank you for listening!

[ENDS]