Police said they have cracked a case involving the rape and murder of a sixth-grade girl in Taipei in 1990 after DNA analysis helped identify two suspects who had allegedly avoided detection for 21 years.
Tsai Jung-shu (蔡榮樹), 50, and his brother, Tsai Jung-yuan (蔡榮源), 57, were taken into custody by prosecutors yesterday.
The dramatic turn of events followed the arrest of the younger brother in Kaohsiung on Wednesday for his alleged involvement in another rape case in April.
Police unexpectedly discovered that his DNA matched samples taken from the decades-old rape-and-murder case, in which the half-naked body of the victim was found at Taipei Municipal Chengde Elementary School’s activity center.
Tsai Jung-shu confessed to the crime and named his brother as an accomplice, authorities said.
The elder brother, who was arrested on Thursday, denied any involvement.
The younger Tsai said he and his brother had drunk a lot of alcohol the night before sneaking into the girl’s school. They found the girl alone and led her into the activity center, where they tied her hands and feet and raped her, police said.
The girl died of suffocation after they covered her nose and mouth with tape, the suspect reportedly told police.
Despite the new -developments, some legal experts said the suspects might not be prosecuted because the statute of limitations for prosecution had expired.
They said the right to prosecute the case is limited to 20 years because the crime took place before the Criminal Code was amended in 2005, extending the time limit for felonies to 30 years.
Lin Chin-tsun (林錦村), deputy director-general of the Department of Prosecutorial Affairs, disagreed.
He said that under the old Criminal Code, time was not counted toward the mandated limit as long as prosecutors executed their power in pursuing the case, which Lin said had happened for much of the past two decades.
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