One of the victims was said to have been partially decapitated before her body was stuffed in a suitcase. It is thought that she had been dead for several days. The other had been repeatedly stabbed and was found lying naked on the floor inside the flat.
Thousands of photographs and some video footage of the two women taken after their deaths was found on a mobile phone, according to the South China Morning Post. The photos were reportedly found in an album on the phone called "Yan corpse photos".
Police were said to be examining the phone in an attempt to identify further potential victims.
Jutting, a Bank of America Merrill Lynch employee, vanished from work about a week ago, a colleague said. The South China Morning Post said he had recently resigned.
According to Bloomberg, Mr Jutting's office email account had been set up with an automatic reply - apparently written by Mr Jutting - telling contacts he was away from work "indefinitely" and that they should "please contact someone who is not an insane psychopath".
CCTV allegedly showed him returning to his flat in the city's Wan Chai district in the company of a woman. Wan Chai is a popular area among affluent young expatriates and is also home to a red light district.
At 3.42am local time on Saturday, he is said to have called the police, who arrived at his 3000 ($3850)-a-month flat on the 31st floor a few minutes later. Forensic teams were said to have found a knife, sex toys, a small quantity of cocaine and a phone belonging to Jutting.
The woman whose body was found in a suitcase was named locally as Sumarti Ningsih, 25, from Indonesia, who had arrived in Hong Kong last month on a tourist visa. The second victim is believed to be a 30-year-old Filipino woman who worked as a part-time DJ in a pub.
A local bar manager, Robert van den Bosch, said of one of the women: "That's the thing that we ask ourselves, why, and why her? If she was just a crazy woman and fighting you could understand, but I have no idea why, because she was always happy."
The reported crime scene recalled Bret Easton Ellis' novel, American Psycho, where numerous barbaric crimes occur in the flat of a Wall Street investment banker. Detectives were said to be visiting Wan Chai's pubs and sex establishments in an attempt to learn more about the women.
A police statement said officers had "laid a holding charge against a 29-year-old man with two counts of murder". "He always seemed so sad - he never said hello to any of us or smiled," said an employee who works in the skyscraper where Jutting lives, and who saw him being led away by police.
Jutting, from Surrey, attended 34,000-a-year Winchester College - motto: "Manners makyth man".
One contemporary at the independent boys' school, Thomas MacThomas, wrote on Twitter yesterday: "So I knew Rurik Jutting when at school. Kinda disturbing. He was quite strange."
Jutting went on to read history and law at Cambridge University. Once physically fit, Jutting had been a member of the lightweight rowing club and the cross-country running club there.
He was also the secretary of Cambridge University's history society, which is called Clio, whose honorary members include philosopher Professor Roger Scruton and historian Dr David Starkey. A senior member of the university said: "He was a bit of an action man, always on the move. I never heard about him getting into any serious trouble, so this comes as a real surprise."
Jutting worked for Barclays in London between 2008 and 2010 before moving to the United States to work for Bank of America Merrill Lynch. The US bank sent him to work in Hong Kong in the summer of 2013.
His last known address in England was a flat in Wapping, east London, where a porter recalled him to be a "really quiet, calm guy" who lived with his girlfriend until they separated. According to a post on his Facebook page, Jutting had recently been in a relationship with an Asian woman called Yanie. He had used his page to post a link to a report entitled: "Money does buy happiness".
A colleague at the US bank, who declined to be named, described Jutting as someone who "talked very loud and made loads of money". Another worker said Jutting was known for his brains and his salary. "He's very smart," said the colleague. "The money he is making is as much as an MD [managing director]. He does business in multiple areas."
He enjoyed skiing in Courchevel, the Alpine playground for the elite, and when in London he relaxed at a private club in Shoreditch.
Jutting's parents, Graham, 53, an engineer, and Helen, 52, a teacher, live in a large Grade II listed manor on the outskirts of Cobham, Surrey. Set behind wrought iron gates and surrounded by woodland, it was built in 1861 and inspired Ernest Shepard's illustration of Kenneth Grahame's children's classic The Wind in the Willows. A man thought to be Jutting's father asked reporters at the gates to "please respect our privacy".
In one of his last Facebook postings, Jutting seemed to suggest all was well in his world. He posted a comment, copied from the internet, which read: "Is 29 the perfect age? I feel more secure, I'm a better friend and I know my limitations. No wonder 29-year-olds are the most popular age group."
Wild side of Hong Kong
Red light district
Wan Chai - where Rurik Jutting is thought to have picked up 200-a-night prostitutes - is Hong Kong's notorious red light district. Just two blocks away from his apartment, hundreds of bars and clubs are teeming with mainly southeast Asian sex workers. Prostitution is legal in Hong Kong, but many women working as "freelancers" are doing so illegally as they are there on tourist visas - including Sumarti Ningsih, the Indonesian victim found in a suitcase. She is thought to have arrived in Hong Kong last month. Despite the authorities' efforts to clean up the area, it is filled with hotel rooms that can be rented by the hour. Robberies and money-laundering are also rife and Chinese gangsters are said to run many of the bars.
Movie link
The gruesome double murder has chilling echoes of the plot of cult horror film American Psycho. In the 2000 movie - based on Bret Easton Ellis' book of the same name - investment banker Patrick Bateman enjoys a luxurious lifestyle, but leads a double life as a serial killer. In one grisly scene, Bateman, played by Christian Bale, leaves two prostitutes battered and bloodied. He later murders one of them with a chainsaw as she flees his home after seeing him kill another woman. Yesterday, hundreds of Twitter users compared the Hong Kong tragedy to the film.
Exclusive living
Jutting lives in the exclusive 40-storey J Residence apartment building, where a one-bedroom penthouse flat is advertised online for HK$26 million - just over $4 million. He has a flat on the 31st floor. The luxury building has a wood-panelled atrium. Beneath the entrance hall's 3m-tall chandelier, the glass front doors had been decorated last week for Halloween.
- Daily Mail, AFP, Independent, AP
