The authorities are pursuing a male suspect after a man was shot dead in New Taipei City’s Tamsui District (淡水) yesterday.
Police officials said the victim, Chen Wen-chung (陳文忠), 46, was shot seven times at close range in the early morning, while he was waiting for his fiancee in his car.
After reviewing footage from street surveillance cameras, police said they were able to track the motorcycle the killer rode to flee the scene, and are looking for the tentatively identified suspect.
Chen’s fiancee said she heard the gunshots shortly before 3am, rushed out to see Chen slumped to one side in the car and bleeding, and called the police.
According to witnesses, she rushed him to a local hospital with a friend’s help, but despite emergency treatment, Chen was pronounced dead at 4:15am.
Tamsui District First Police Precinct’s criminal investigation section chief Chen Kuang-yu (陳冠宇) said a forensic team dusted the car for fingerprints, gathered evidence and recovered eight bullet cartridges inside the vehicle.
Chen Wen-chung was shot twice in the head and five times between his shoulders and lower body, while the one stray bullet may have been a missed shot, he said.
The evidence so far and testimony from Chen Wen-chung’s family indicated that the killer had likely monitored Chen’s movements for some time, and knew his routine of parking on the street at that hour to wait for his fiancee, Chen Kuang-yu said.
Chen Wen-chung was convicted of shooting and murdering restaurant owner Lu Ching-fang (呂清芳) in 2003 over a financial dispute regarding a loan shark.
He served time in prison, but was released on early parole in January 2016. He began working for his father’s gravel trucking company, but media reports quoted local residents as saying that he continued to engage in blackmail, loan sharking and debt collection.
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