Police are investigating an apparent suicide pact following the discovery of four bodies in Tainan’s Yenshui District (鹽水) on Wednesday.
Officials from the Tainan District Prosecutors’ Office on Thursday examined the bodies of the three males and one female university student, as well as their belongings, after preliminary findings indicated they committed suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning by burning charcoal in an enclosed room.
Tainan Sinying Precinct Police Chief Chang Jung-hsin (張榮興) said that after the examination of the bodies and evidence, forensic pathologists yesterday performed autopsies to verify the cause of the death and determine whether there was any possibility of foul play.
Chang said police identified the four bodies as a 25-year-old man surnamed Wu (吳), his 22-year-old girlfriend surnamed Liu (劉), a cousin of Wu’s surnamed Kuo (郭), 31, and a friend of Kuo’s, a 35-year-old man.
“Although the bodies were swollen, their clothing had not been tampered with, they displayed no signs of trauma and it appeared that no foul play was involved,” Chang said.
They left suicide notes, which mentioned that the three men were embroiled in a dispute over debt which had led to them being sued, but that it was all due to a misunderstanding and they had had to borrow money from relatives and friends for living expenses for the past year, Chang said.
Chang said Liu left a note in which she apologized to her mother for her action and said she chose to commit suicide with her boyfriend because she could not bear him going to jail.
The two were found tied by a red string in reference to the Chinese “red string of fate” lovers’ suicide mythology.
Police investigators said it was likely the men decided to die together because of the lawsuit, and because they could not pay their debts and felt life was not worth living, while Liu decided to die alongside her boyfriend.
However, Liu’s parents believed their daughter had no reason to die and that she was “brainwashed” by the men, and had asked police to investigate further.
Local residents said the men had displayed some emotional disturbance at a temple during Taoist religious ceremonies, where certain rituals call for worshipers to be possessed by forces from the spiritual realm, resulting in agitated body motions and speaking in strange voices, and that they suspected this might have contributed to their deaths.
CARGO LOSS: About 50 containers at the stern of the ‘Ever Lunar’ cargo ship went overboard, prompting the temporary closure of the port and disrupting operations Evergreen Marine Corp, Taiwan’s largest container shipper, yesterday said that all crew members aboard the Ever Lunar (長月) were safe after dozens of containers fell overboard off the coast of Peru the previous day. The incident occurred at 9:40am on Friday as the Ever Lunar was anchored and waiting to enter the Port of Callao when it suddenly experienced severe rolling, Evergreen said in a statement. The rolling, which caused the containers to fall, might have been caused by factors including a tsunami triggered by an earthquake in Russia, poor winter sea conditions in South America or a sudden influx of waves,
The Ministry of Culture yesterday officially launched the “We TAIWAN” cultural program on Osaka’s Nakanoshima sandbank, with the program’s mascot receiving overwhelming popularity. The cultural program, which runs from Aug. 2 to 20, was designed to partner with and capitalize on the 2025 World Expo that is being held in Osaka, Japan, from April 13 to Oct. 13, the ministry said. On the first day of the cultural program, its mascot, a green creature named “a-We,” proved to be extremely popular, as its merch was immediately in high demand. Long lines formed yesterday for the opening
The Taipei Summer Festival is to begin tomorrow at Dadaocheng Wharf (大稻埕), featuring four themed firework shows and five live music performances throughout the month, the Taipei Department of Information and Tourism said today. The festival in the city’s Datong District (大同) is to run until Aug. 30, holding firework displays on Wednesdays and the final Saturday of the event. The first show is scheduled for tomorrow, followed by Aug. 13, 20 and 30. To celebrate the 30th anniversary of Disney Pixar's movie Toy Story, the festival has partnered with Walt Disney Co (Taiwan) to host a special themed area on
BE CAREFUL: The virus rarely causes severe illness or death, but newborns, older people and those with medical conditions are at risk of more severe illness As more than 7,000 cases of chikungunya fever have been reported in China’s Guangdong Province this year, including 2,892 new cases last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday said it is monitoring the situation and considering raising the travel notice level, which might be announced today. The CDC issued a level 1 travel notice, or “watch,” for Guangdong Province on July 22, citing an outbreak in Foshan, a manufacturing hub in the south of the province, that was reported early last month. Between July 27 and Saturday, the province reported 2,892 new cases of chikungunya, reaching a total of 7,716
RSS