Judges and prosecutors in Miaoli County have been unsettled by a ghostly image of a woman on a blue vehicle outside their offices, but have been unable to do anything other than ask the police for help.
On the vehicle’s rear window is a phosphorescent poster featuring the bloodied face of a long-haired and goggle-eyed woman.
The vehicle has been parked for nearly two months in a lot shared by the Miaoli District Court and the Miaoli District Prosecutors’ Office.
Photo: Peng Chien-li, Taipei Times
Many officials have reportedly been frightened by the uncanny image while walking through the parking lot in the evening.
“People would be scared to death if they were to see it during Ghost Month,” an unnamed judge said, referring to the seven month of the lunar calendar, which in Taoist folklore is when the ghosts of the underworld are unleashed on the world.
Officials initially assumed that the vehicle was owned by a colleague, but now think that it might belong to a visitor, as the parking lot is open to the public during office hours.
Some prosecutors have found it bemusing that they, as judicial authorities, are unable to do anything about the vehicle, while others said that the vehicle’s owner might have been detained, leaving them unable to move it.
As the parking lot is not a public road, the vehicle cannot be said to be contravening the Road Traffic Management and Penalty Act (道路交通管理處罰條例), meaning police cannot tow it away or ask environmental authorities to deal with it.
General affairs personnel at the prosecutors’ office decided to cover the ghostly visage with a written exhortation for the vehicle’s owner — if they can see it — to claim the vehicle and move it.
They also asked the police to search for the owner.
Following an investigation, police said that the vehicle’s owner is in jail and cannot drive the vehicle away.
The owner’s relatives have promised to drive it home as soon as possible, police said.
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