The brother of a woman whose decapitated head was found on Friday in a lavatory has been arrested on suspicion of murder.
New Taipei City (新北市) Sanchong Police Precinct deputy director Hsu Hsin (徐歆) said the victim was confirmed to be Chen Wan-ting (陳婉婷), a woman who suffered from mental illness who lived in the city’s Sanchong District (三重) with her brother, Chen Chia-fu (陳佳富), and had been reported missing on Dec. 17.
Based on the preliminary investigation, Chen Chia-fu has been identified as the prime suspect in the case and was brought in for questioning at the Sanchong Precinct on Saturday night.
Photo: CNA
Investigators found that Chen Chia-fu, a chef who also suffered from mental illness, took out five life insurance policies on his sister last year, worth a total of about NT$5 million (US$151,000).
Investigators said that surveillance cameras in the vicinity of Chen Chia-fu’s residence captured at 4am on Wednesday a man resembling him leaving with a large, black garbage bag.
Footage recorded at about 11am on the same day by cameras near where the head was discovered captured a man wearing a face mask, sunglasses, a hat and a wig who resembled Chen Chia-fu, investigators said.
Chen Chia-fu was vague when questioned and denied any involvement in the murder. The Chiayi District Prosecutors’ Office issued a warrant for his arrest yesterday to take him in for a second round of questioning in Chiayi, where his sister’s head was discovered.
The head was found sprinkled with salt and wrapped in clothing and layers of plastic bags with a piece of paper written with the name Chen Wang-ting in the men’s lavatory at Shangtian Temple in Shueishang Township (水上).
An anonymous letter from someone claiming to be a “kind-hearted man” led the police to the remains. Sent from a non-existent address in Taoyuan County to Sanchong Precinct’s Datong police station, where Chen Wan-ting’s mother had reported her missing, the letter told police that a severed head had been placed in a public washroom 200m from the Chiayi County Farmers’ Cooperative Association and asked “kindhearted police officers to help out and take care of the corpse.”
Police said they were reviewing Chen Chia-fu’s telephone records and analyzing evidence collected from his residence, adding that they were searching for the rest of Chen Wan-ting’s body, and trying to ascertain the suspect’s motive and how the victim was murdered.
CHAOS: Iranians took to the streets playing celebratory music after reports of Khamenei’s death on Saturday, while mourners also gathered in Tehran yesterday Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in a major attack on Iran launched by Israel and the US, throwing the future of the Islamic republic into doubt and raising the risk of regional instability. Iranian state television and the state-run IRNA news agency announced the 86-year-old’s death early yesterday. US President Donald Trump said it gave Iranians their “greatest chance” to “take back” their country. The announcements came after a joint US and Israeli aerial bombardment that targeted Iranian military and governmental sites. Trump said the “heavy and pinpoint bombing” would continue through the week or as long
An Emirates flight from Dubai arrived at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport yesterday afternoon, the first service of the airline since the US and Israel launched strikes against Iran on Saturday. Flight EK366 took off from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) at 3:51am yesterday and landed at 4:02pm before taxiing to the airport’s D6 gate at Terminal 2 at 4:08pm, data from the airport and FlightAware, a global flight tracking site, showed. Of the 501 passengers on the flight, 275 were Taiwanese, including 96 group tour travelers, the data showed. Tourism Administration Deputy Director-General Huang He-ting (黃荷婷) greeted Taiwanese passengers at the airport and
TRUST: The KMT said it respected the US’ timing and considerations, and hoped it would continue to honor its commitments to helping Taiwan bolster its defenses and deterrence US President Donald Trump is delaying a multibillion-dollar arms sale to Taiwan to ensure his visit to Beijing is successful, a New York Times report said. The weapons sales package has stalled in the US Department of State, the report said, citing US officials it did not identify. The White House has told agencies not to push forward ahead of Trump’s meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), it said. The two last month held a phone call to discuss trade and geopolitical flashpoints ahead of the summit. Xi raised the Taiwan issue and urged the US to handle arms sales to
State-run CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) yesterday said that it had confirmed on Saturday night with its liquefied natural gas (LNG) and crude oil suppliers that shipments are proceeding as scheduled and that domestic supplies remain unaffected. The CPC yesterday announced the gasoline and diesel prices will rise by NT$0.2 and NT$0.4 per liter, respectively, starting Monday, citing Middle East tensions and blizzards in the eastern United States. CPC also iterated it has been reducing the proportion of crude oil imports from the Middle East and diversifying its supply sources in the past few years in response to geopolitical risks, expanding