Over the past three years, no fewer than 70,000 of the island's taxi drivers have had their palm prints analyzed in the search for Peng Wan-ru's (
Police say they have never given up hope of catching the man, which they still to this day believe was the taxi driver who picked Peng up that fateful night. The widely held hunch has led police to conduct thousands of roadside inspections on both taxi drivers and other drivers in possession of an older model of the yellow Ford Telstar Peng was last seen climbing into.
To date, police claim to have checked more than 30,000 taxis in extensive regions south of Chiayi County. Not only the drivers, but their families, too.
Put together with spot checks conducted on bus and truck drivers across the island, the total number of people investigated comes to more than 130,000.
While the police force's efforts have no doubt been tireless, however, they have born little fruit, resulting in scathing public criticism being directed against the force for its perceived inefficiency.
The search has not been without its dramatic moments. On at least three occasions, police thought they were on to a certain lead as people came out to admit they had been Peng's killer. Public hopes were soon dashed, however, after initial investigation negated the claims.
Two different men came out with claims about a year apart -- one in July 1998 and the other in June 1999 -- but were later found to have been serving jail terms at the time of Peng's murder. As it turned out, they had been trying to put their families in line for the reward of NT$22 million from police for information leading to Peng's killer.
The third disappointment came in September this year when a taxi driver was found dead in his car with a suicide note, saying, "I apologize about Peng Wan-ru." Unfortunately, blood and fingerprint tests conducted on his body forced police to rule out the possibility that he had indeed been responsible for Peng's murder.
The police's efforts have spawned intense debate between supporters of law enforcement agencies in Taiwan and their most vocal critics, who say Peng's case is the clearest evidence of just how incompetent the nation's public security system is.
Peng's husband, Hung Wan-sheng (
"If the killer is ever arrested, it will be thanks to God's mercy," Hung said. "We've never given up hope that the case would be solved some day. But I've also had to come to terms with the reality that it's not something we can force.
"It was a terrible trauma to go through three years ago, but we've survived. I know many people have focused their attention on the investigation and raised their hopes that the murderer will be found -- which I myself have always hoped for. But I think a top priority now is to see what efforts we can make to ensure another such tragedy is prevented from happening," Hung said.
Peng's 1996 murder came at a sensitive time for the government, as it took place soon after another high-profile killing -- the Nov. 21 assassination of former Taoyuan County Commissioner Liu Pang-yu (
The investigation of the brutal Taoyuan assassination has likewise yielded little progress.
"The longer an investigation, the more difficult it is to find out what the `truth' is," a police official admitted.
When asked whether the police are thinking of taking any new, fresh approaches in investigating Peng's case, the police official gave a standard reply: "We're working hard to examine more taxi drivers in Taiwan."
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is expected to start construction of its 1.4-nanometer chip manufacturing facilities at the Central Taiwan Science Park (CTSP, 中部科學園區) as early as October, the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper) reported yesterday, citing the park administration. TSMC acquired land for the second phase of the park’s expansion in Taichung in June. Large cement, construction and facility engineering companies in central Taiwan have reportedly been receiving bids for TSMC-related projects, the report said. Supply-chain firms estimated that the business opportunities for engineering, equipment and materials supply, and back-end packaging and testing could reach as high as
CHAMPIONS: President Lai congratulated the players’ outstanding performance, cheering them for marking a new milestone in the nation’s baseball history Taiwan on Sunday won their first Little League Baseball World Series (LLBWS) title in 29 years, as Taipei’s Dong Yuan Elementary School defeated a team from Las Vegas 7-0 in the championship game in South Williamsport, Pennsylvania. It was Taiwan’s first championship in the annual tournament since 1996, ending a nearly three-decade drought. “It has been a very long time ... and we finally made it,” Taiwan manager Lai Min-nan (賴敏男) said after the game. Lai said he last managed a Dong Yuan team in at the South Williamsport in 2015, when they were eliminated after four games. “There is
POWER PLANT POLL: The TPP said the number of ‘yes’ votes showed that the energy policy should be corrected, and the KMT said the result was a win for the people’s voice The government does not rule out advanced nuclear energy generation if it meets the government’s three prerequisites, President William Lai (賴清德) said last night after the number of votes in favor of restarting a nuclear power plant outnumbered the “no” votes in a referendum yesterday. The referendum failed to pass, despite getting more “yes” votes, as the Referendum Act (公民投票法) states that the vote would only pass if the votes in favor account for more than one-fourth of the total number of eligible voters and outnumber the opposing votes. Yesterday’s referendum question was: “Do you agree that the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant
Democratic nations should refrain from attending China’s upcoming large-scale military parade, which Beijing could use to sow discord among democracies, Mainland Affairs Council Deputy Minister Shen You-chung (沈有忠) said. China is scheduled to stage the parade on Wednesday next week to mark the 80th anniversary of Japan’s surrender in World War II. The event is expected to mobilize tens of thousands of participants and prominently showcase China’s military hardware. Speaking at a symposium in Taichung on Thursday, Shen said that Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) recently met with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi during a visit to New Delhi.