Chau Quong Ho was born on November 28, 1967, in the Phước Tuy Province of South Vietnam. He is of Hoa ethnicity. When he was young, he moved to Oregon with his father, Van. As a boy, Chau served as an altar server at the local Saint Mary Catholic Church, but he had some problems at school. From August to November 1975, he lived at Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton. After that, a group from Port Arthur, Texas, sponsored Chau and his father to move to Texas.

At age 14, Chau and his father moved to Woodburn, Oregon. Chau went to the local high school and seemed to enjoy it. However, he once overdosed on aspirin in what was thought to be a suicide attempt, but he survived. In 1985, Chau and his father had a fight, and his father hit him with a piece of wood. After this, Chau moved to California to live with his aunt and cousin. There, he worked briefly for a company before joining the Marine Corps, where he served in Okinawa, Japan.

In 1990, Chau applied for an honorable discharge from the Marines and returned to Oregon. He got a job as a security dispatcher for the Paragon Cable company. During this time, he legally changed his name to Sebastian Alexander Shaw.

On July 1, 1991, 40-year-old Jay Andrew Rickbeil, who was a quadriplegic with cerebral palsy, was found dead in his Portland home. His roommate and apartment manager, Mac MacCartney, discovered him. Rickbeil had bled to death from a neck injury likely caused by a knife. Neighbors said Rickbeil was a New Age believer who often invited strangers into his apartment for discussions and tried to convert them to his religion. He was trusting and often gave out his business card with his address, and sometimes even money, which led to his possessions being stolen. At the time, Shaw had been fired from his job at Paragon Cable after complaints of sexual assault by a coworker, Shirley Phillips. Shaw, angry, randomly picked Rickbeil and slashed his throat while he was in bed.

On July 20, 1992, a couple, Todd A. Rudiger, 29, and his girlfriend Donna G. Ferguson, 18, were found murdered in their trailer home in Portland by their fathers. Both had been stabbed in the neck and bled to death. Donna was also bound and raped before being killed.

On May 27, 1994, John Lin came home from work and found his 14-year-old daughter Jenny dead in their bathroom in Castro Valley, California. Jenny had been stabbed multiple times. There were no signs of a struggle, sexual assault, or missing items, which puzzled investigators. Jenny was a straight-A student and a gifted violinist with no known enemies. Friends last spoke to her on the phone around 5:15 p.m., and she said she was fine and at home. Authorities believed Jenny's killer was a man who overpowered her. They were looking for a young man on a motorcycle seen handing out leaflets in the area.

John Lin remembered that two weeks before Jenny's death, a disheveled man stopped him in a parking lot, claiming he "got his daughter," but John knew Jenny was at violin lessons and ignored him. This man was not considered a suspect, but a sketch was released to identify him. The Lin family started "Friends of Jenny Lin" to raise awareness about her case. In October, a neighbor told police they saw a stocky man in a dark jacket and cap outside the Lin home near the time of the murder but were afraid to come forward earlier.

On August 31, 1994, Sebastian Shaw was arrested for burglary after being found asleep in a stolen car in San Ramon. Police found a "murder kit" with items like a ski mask, gloves, duct tape, knives, binoculars, and handcuffs. He was released as there was no evidence linking him to any murders. On February 20, 1998, he was arrested and charged with the Rudiger/Ferguson murders and the 1995 rape of 18-year-old Amanda Carpova in Portland. His DNA matched the crime scenes after police obtained a discarded cigarette.

Shaw pled guilty to the double murder and Carpova's sexual assault. However, the judge acquitted him of Rickbeil's murder before the trial at the prosecutors' request. Shaw received two life sentences. In jail, Shaw told another inmate he had killed 13 people. When detectives interviewed him, Shaw said he would name the victims if transferred to a federal prison where he could smoke, as smoking was banned in Oregon prisons. Two years later, he was convicted of Rickbeil's murder and given another life sentence. That year, he was named the prime suspect in Jenny Lin's murder but wasn't charged due to a lack of evidence. The case remains unsolved.

Shaw died in prison on October 4, 2021, at age 53, after serving 15 years of his sentence. The cause of death was not disclosed.