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Police solve `bagged corpse' case

"I gave birth to a bad son and I rid society of him."

Cheng Hsi, mother of murder victim

Police said on Sunday they had solved the Pingtung County "bagged corpse" case.

Investigators determined that the culprits were the victim's father, Cheng Guo-yi (鄭國義), 65, and that the body was disposed of with the help of the victim's mother, Cheng Hsi (鄭絲), 61.

The murder is believed to have occurred after the victim, 36-year-old Cheng Tsang-hai (鄭滄海), had an altercation with his father while wielding a kitchen knife. The father allegedly responded by strangling his son with a nylon rope. The following day, the couple disposed of the body near a stretch of highway in Shihtzu Township (獅子), Pingtung County.

After her arrest, the victim's mother said she was willing to face any punishment meted out by the law.

"I gave birth to a bad son and I rid society of him," she said.

Police charged the couple with murder and other offenses.

The black plastic bag containing human remains was found near Township Route 199 in Pingtung on March 5. Following a police investigation, the wife of the victim identified the corpse by its clothing. The victim's father told police that his son had disappeared after an argument on Dec. 27. However, police found that nobody in Cheng's family had reported the dead man as missing.

Police determined that the victim had a tendency to turn violent after drinking. On Dec. 27, a drunk Cheng Tsang-hai showed up at his father's vegetable warehouse, reportedly saying he was going to burn it down. After an altercation with his father, Cheng Tsang-hai went back to his house and fetched a kitchen knife before returning to his father's house.

Unable to persuade her husband not to go back, Cheng Tsang-hai's wife called her father and mother-in-law to warn them.

The father waited for his son with the nylon rope. When the son entered the premises, Cheng Guo-yi strangled him from behind.

With the help of his wife, the couple drove the body south in their truck, concealed under eight boxes of cabbages before pushing the body, placed in a black plastic bag, down the slope off Route 199.

The father intended to retrieve the son's bones after a certain period of time and to this end noted the time of the crime and the location where he had dropped the corpse. The body, however, was discovered on March 3.

Three days later, police found traces of blood on Cheng's truck.

Cheng and his wife then took a gun and drove into the mountains of Hualien early on March 7, ostensibly with the intention of committing suicide. Police arrested the pair on March 8 in Taitung County's Guanshan Township (關山).

Upon his arrest, Cheng admitted to killing his son.
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