Ngor was found dead by his car near his Chinatown home in Los Angeles, California on February 25, 1996. He was 55 at the time according to the coroner's office, but the police said he was 45. Neighbors and friends believed that he was robbed, because he lived in a very low end neighborhood. His nephew believed otherwise, saying that it was a group of Cambodian enemies that did it for a "political motive." In any case, his friends and family mourned his loss by burning incense near the scene and making a shrine of flowers and pictures to remember him. 

When Ngor arrived in America, his main goal in life was to help refugees from Cambodia and to bring light to the genocde happening in his country. His most famous contribution to this effort was his supporting role in the 1984 movie "The Killing Fields." In this movie, he played Dith Pran, who was a journalist and had to escape to the United States to reunite with his family and his friend Sidney Schanberg. Ngor would go on to win an Oscar award for best supporting actor, making him the second non-professional actor to win an Oscar award. In 1988, he authored "Hain Ngor: A Cambodian Odyssey," which described his trials in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge. Also, he created the Brussel-bases groups Aid to Displaced Persons and Enfants d' Angkor. Upon death, a memorial fund was created in his name by the American Refugee Committee to assist Cambodians. 

Haing S. Ngor was born in Samrong Young, Cambodia on March 22, 1940. When he grew up, he became a surgeon and a gynecologist. He practiced in the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh until 1975, when Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge regime took power over Cambodia, and forced everyone out of the city. He and his wife were forced to live in a concentration camp, until his wife died in child labor. He could have saved her, because he was a gynecologist, but it would have revelealed his identity as a doctor and gotten him killed. Afterwards, he escaped and went to America.