Nantou County police yesterday arrested a suspect surnamed Tsou (鄒) in connection with the death of Wang Chia-ming (王嘉明), whose body was found buried in a freshly dug grave after his wife reported him missing a week earlier.
Investigators said that Wang, 51, was known to have been in a dispute with a fellow taxi driver over an alleged affair.
He was allegedly beaten up last month because of it, police said.
Photo: CNA
Police on Thursday began combing Nantou City’s Ninth Public Cemetery, where Wang’s phone signal was last detected, and found the body on Saturday, investigators said.
“We located where the body was buried with the help of a drone operated by the search team. They flew the drone over the area several times, and noticed one site where a mound of earth had recently been dug up with dried grass covering it,” Nantou City Police Precinct chief Liu Ming-hsing (劉明興) said.
When the team approached the site, they could smell the strong odor of decomposing flesh, Liu said, adding that Wang’s body was found about 1m below ground and appeared to have been struck by a blunt object on the head.
After questioning Wang’s wife and others, police arrested Tsou, 50, who had been working for the same taxi association as Wang in Taichung.
Nantou County prosecutors said that while being questioned yesterday, Tsou admitted to killing Wang because they were both having an extramarital affair with the same woman.
Tsou and Wang were allegedly involved with a 41-year-old woman surnamed Liu (劉), who was also working for the taxi association, investigators said.
Tsou’s family lives in Nantou County, but he rented a home in Taichung, where he and Liu lived, prosecutors said.
In other news, police in New Taipei City yesterday said that they had arrested two suspects after a woman surnamed Huang (黃), 50, and her daughter, 23, were tied up while their home in New Taipei City’s Shulin District (樹林) was ransacked.
Police on Saturday arrested a Taiwanese man surnamed Ting (丁), 53, and a Vietnamese migrant worker surnamed Pham, 35, officials said, adding that Ting was detained under restricted communication after being questioned by New Taipei City prosecutors yesterday.
Police said that the two men allegedly tied the women up and stripped Huang of her clothing so that they could take photographs of her, hoping she would not report the incident to the police.
After they left the apartment six hours later, Huang called the police and said that the perpetrators had stolen NT$6,500.
Officials quoted Ting as saying that he ran a factory and had to pay back a loan of NT$100,000, so he got Pham, an employee, to help with the robbery.
Ting was quoted as saying that he knew Huang from a social club and thought she would have plenty of money at home.
Police said that Pham told them his employer had asked him to help with a job and he did not know they would be engaged in criminal activity.
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