The Taiwan High Court yesterday reversed earlier rulings on a Taipei murder case dating from 2000 and found the defendant, Lu Chieh-min (呂介閔), not guilty.
The ruling said that the court’s decision was based on new DNA tests of bodily fluids found on the female victim.
Lu, now 35, was found not guilty of murder due to a lack of evidence in the first and second rulings. However, in subsequent court-mandated retrials, he received a guilty verdict and was sentenced to a 13-year prison term in 2010.
Photo: Taipei Times
After 10 years of judicial proceedings and exhausting his appeals, Lu was incarcerated and has since served four years of his sentence.
In May, new evidence was presented for re-examination using the latest DNA testing technique.
Lu was charged with the murder of his girlfriend, surnamed Kuo (郭), after her body was found at a public park in Taipei’s Neihu District (內湖) in July 2000.
Photo: CNA
Kuo’s body showed evidence of trauma to her head — it was suspected that she was struck by a blunt object — and there was a bite mark on her left breast, along with indications that she was sexually assaulted.
A criminal investigation and evidence suggested that the two had an argument over Lu’s decision to date other women, quarreling at the park when Lu allegedly hit her with a blunt weapon, killing Kuo, and then partially removed her clothing and underwear.
Prosecutors said the bite mark on Kuo’s left breast was a “love bite” by Lu, and a coroner’s report said the mark conformed to features of Lu’s teeth.
“The new DNA testing showed that the saliva left on the female victim’s body did not match the defendant’s DNA. Therefore we concurred that the bite mark was not made by the defendant,” Taiwan High Court spokesman Chou Ying-wen (周盈文) said about yesterday’s ruling. “Also, DNA from semen samples taken from the victim’s body and underwear did not match Lu’s DNA.”
However, there were still questions and doubts over the case.
“All of the evidence points to Lu as my daughter’s killer, but now DNA testing shows it was not him. Then who was the murderer? Can the courts give justice to my daughter? They must help us to find the murderer,” Kuo’s mother said yesterday.
Chou said that in the first and second trials, Lu had confessed to leaving the bite mark on the victim. However, the court took into consideration that Lu was influenced by the forensic report at the time, which indicated the bite mark conformed to Lu’s teeth.
Chou said that public prosecutors would not appeal yesterday’s verdict to the Supreme Court, unless there were extraordinary circumstances, such as “cited legal reasons for the verdict having contravened the Constitution, or contravened legal interpretation by the Judicial Yuan, or contravened other precedent rulings.”
Taipei has once again made it to the top 100 in Oxford Economics’ Global Cities Index 2025 report, moving up five places from last year to 60. The annual index, which was published last month, evaluated 1,000 of the most populated metropolises based on five indices — economics, human capital, quality of life, environment and governance. New York maintained its top spot this year, placing first in the economics index thanks to the strength of its vibrant financial industry and economic stability. Taipei ranked 263rd in economics, 44th in human capital, 15th in quality of life, 284th for environment and 75th in governance,
The Sports Administration yesterday demanded an apology from the national table tennis association for barring 17-year-old Yeh Yi-tian (葉伊恬) from competing in the upcoming World Table Tennis (WTT) United States Smash tournament in Las Vegas this July. The sports agency said in a statement that the Chinese Taipei Table Tennis Association (CTTTA) must explain to the public why it withdrew Yeh from the WTT tournament in Las Vegas. The sports agency said it contacted the association to express its disapproval of the decision-making process after receiving a complaint from Yeh’s coach, Chuang
Control Yuan Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) tendered his resignation last night, admitting that he had misused a government vehicle, as reported by media. His resignation was immediately accepted by the Control Yuan. In a statement explaining why he had resigned, Lee apologized for using a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a pet grooming salon on May 20. The issue first came to light late last month, when TVBS News reported that Lee had instructed his driver to take the dog to the salon. The news channel broadcast photos that it said were taken by an unnamed whistle-blower, which purportedly showed the
A former officer in China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) who witnessed the aftermath of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre has warned that Taiwan could face a similar fate if China attempts to unify the country by force. Li Xiaoming (李曉明), who was deployed to Beijing as a junior officer during the crackdown, said Taiwanese people should study the massacre carefully, because it offers a glimpse of what Beijing is willing to do to suppress dissent. “What happened in Tiananmen Square could happen in Taiwan too,” Li told CNA in a May 22 interview, ahead of the massacre’s 36th anniversary. “If Taiwanese students or
RSS