The Tainan District Court yesterday handed a life sentence to Wu Mao-teng (吳茂騰) for killing his girlfriend and dismembering her body in January.
Wu, 30, was also deprived of his civil rights for life for the “extremely cruel” and “grisly” murder, the court said.
It was the first ruling and can be appealed.
Prosecutors and Chang’s family had asked for the death penalty.
However, the court said: “The defendant had no prior criminal conviction and had admitted to the crime during the investigation, holding out the possibility of rehabilitation.”
As the court saw no need for him to be permanently isolated from society, it ruled in favor of a life sentence, it said.
On Jan. 8, Wu and his girlfriend, surnamed Chang (張), 42, had an argument in their apartment, with Wu accusing Chang of having an affair, the investigation showed.
During the judicial proceeding and questioning, Wu admitted to strangling Chang to death.
An autopsy showed internal bruising and a broken hyoid bone, leading coroners to conclude that Chang must have been strangled for at least 15 minutes, resulting in her painful death by asphyxia.
Wu then wrapped electrical cords around her neck to make sure she was dead, they said.
Wu went out the next day to buy materials that he used to cut the corpse into seven pieces and stuffed them into large plastic bags.
He admitted taking the bags to a grassy vacant lot near Tainan’s Barclay Memorial Park (巴克禮公園) to dispose of the body.
When the bags were found several weeks later, parts of the corpse had been eaten by dogs.
Wu was an employee at a metalworking factory. Chang was a single parent who had a son in college.
Chang’s son told reporters that he and his relatives were hoping for the death sentence, as Wu had killed his mother in cold blood and in an extremely cruel manner.
“Rehabilitation is not a possibility for Wu. We wanted him to receive the death sentence, so that he would not waste taxpayers’ money by staying in prison. The court should mete out justice for the victim,” he said.
He disagreed with the court’s assessment that Wu had shown goodwill and cooperated with authorities during the investigation, saying that Wu at first denied knowing what happened to Chang and only admitted to the crime after investigators cited inconsistencies in his testimony and presented him with the facts.
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