Pingtung City police said they intend to file murder charges against a 39-year-old man who on Wednesday allegedly strangled his former wife to death.
On the same day, Taoyuan prosecutors questioned a 27-year-man over a stabbing incident that left one person dead and two with serious injuries.
The two cases follow a series of deadly crimes across the nation over the past few days involving broken relationships or family disputes, authorities said.
Photo: Lee Li-fa, Taipei Times
In the Pingtung case, police said the suspect, surnamed Kao (高), killed his ex-wife, surnamed Tsai (蔡), on Wednesday morning.
“They were divorced, but Kao was hoping they could patch up their differences and get back together again, but Tsai refused. Neighbors reported hearing them quarreling,” Pingtung Police Precinct head of criminal investigation Lin Hung-chung (林紅忠) said. “Tsai was later found dead, with bruises around her neck, suggesting that Kao had strangled her to death.”
Kao tried to commit suicide by cutting his wrist with a knife, but he was taken to a local hospital and is now out of danger, Lin said.
The neighbors said the couple had two children and divorced last month, allegedly because of an extramarital affair.
They said that Kao had worked as a cook in a vegetarian restaurant, but was recently laid off, while Tsai operated a Taoist shrine which offers spiritual counseling and ritual services.
In the other case, a man surnamed Fan (范), 27, was on Tuesday night arrested for allegedly stabbing family members.
He was caught hiding in a drain in Taoyuan’s Guanyin District (觀音).
Fan allegedly got angry after being questioned by family members, grabbed a long kitchen knife and started stabbing them.
His aunt, 59, received two fatal wounds to the chest and one to the back.
His mother, 48, and another aunt, 66, received multiple knife cuts and were taken to hospital. They were both out of danger yesterday, authorities said.
“Fan’s family said that he has depression and emotional problems,” Dayuan Police Precinct head of criminal investigation Huang Cheng-hsi (黃呈錫) said.
“He was leaving the house when his elders asked him where he was going and suggested that he stay home to keep out of trouble. He went berserk and started attacking them with a knife,” Huang said.
“Fan’s family said that he was a well-behaved kid, but it changed when he started university, where he quit after a year of studies due to psychological problems. He then took a job as a security guard at a residential building, where he worked for two years, but then quit due to psychological issues and had to take medication for depression,” Huang said.
Unemployed, Fan mainly stayed at home in the past year, but would sometimes go out for days and allegedly started taking ketamine and other illegal drugs, his family said.
He fled after the stabbing incident, but Taoyuan police were able to track him down at about 11pm on Tuesday.
He had stripped naked to hide in a drain and was incoherent when police tried to question him.
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