The Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office has indicted a 37-year-old woman for allegedly scalding her mother to death in a bathtub.
On June 9 last year, the mother, who was in her 70s, was reported dead in the bathroom at home.
While relatives initially thought she had died from a bath-related accident, prosecutors who inspected the body noticed that there was swelling and peeled off skin.
Photo: Chien Li-chung, Taipei Times
A forensic report concluded that the mother had second-degree burns over a large part of the lower half of her body, which sent her into cardiogenic shock, leading to her death.
Prosecutors said the daughter, surnamed Pan (潘), who was unemployed, initially denied knowing what happened to her mother, but later allegedly confessed to her involvement after the coroner concluded the autopsy.
Prosecutors quoted Pan as saying that she was upset with her mother for not buying her Golden Ray puppetry discs, adding that she had added cold water to the bathtub and it had not been her intention to hurt her mother.
Police and prosecutors found many A4 sheets of paper pasted around the house and on the bathroom walls blaming Pan’s mother for not keeping her promises to do things for her.
Prosecutors reconstructed the scene based on the water stains in the bathtub and the places where peeling skin had stuck to the bathtub and the edge of the door.
The hot water coming out of the faucet, as well as in the bathtub after being in contact with air, could reach up to 60°C, prosecutors said.
The mother’s severe burns could only have been caused by sitting in the hot water for at least five hours, they said.
Prosecutors on Wednesday charged Pan with intentionally injuring others, resulting in death, stating that Pan, aware that her mother’s sense of temperature in the lower half of her body was impaired due to a stroke, still allegedly demanded her mother to get in the bath and stay there for a long period.
Chi Ching-chi (紀景琪), a doctor at Linkou Chang Gung Memorial Hospital’s Department of Dermatology, said that it would usually take water of more than 70°C to inflict second-degree burns.
ALIGNED THINKING: Taiwan and Japan have a mutual interest in trade, culture and engineering, and can work together for stability, Cho Jung-tai said Taiwan and Japan are two like-minded countries willing to work together to form a “safety barrier” in the Indo-Pacific region, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) yesterday said at the opening ceremony of the 35th Taiwan-Japan Modern Engineering and Technology Symposium in Taipei. Taiwan and Japan are close geographically and closer emotionally, he added. Citing the overflowing of a barrier lake in the Mataian River (馬太鞍溪) in September, Cho said the submersible water level sensors given by Japan during the disaster helped Taiwan monitor the lake’s water levels more accurately. Japan also provided a lot of vaccines early in the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic,
Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chi-mai (陳其邁) on Monday announced light shows and themed traffic lights to welcome fans of South Korean pop group Twice to the port city. The group is to play Kaohsiung on Saturday as part of its “This Is For” world tour. It would be the group’s first performance in Taiwan since its debut 10 years ago. The all-female group consists of five South Koreans, three Japanese and Tainan’s Chou Tzu-yu (周子瑜), the first Taiwan-born and raised member of a South Korean girl group. To promote the group’s arrival, the city has been holding a series of events, including a pop-up
TEMPORAL/SPIRITUAL: Beijing’s claim that the next Buddhist leader must come from China is a heavy-handed political maneuver that will fall flat-faced, experts said China’s requirement that the Dalai Lama’s reincarnation to be born in China and approved by Beijing has drawn criticism, with experts at a forum in Taipei yesterday saying that if Beijing were to put forth its own Dalai Lama, the person would not be recognized by the Tibetan Buddhist community. The experts made a remarks at the two-day forum hosted by the Tibet Religious Foundation of His Holiness the Dalai Lama titled: “The Snow Land Forum: Finding Common Ground on Tibet.” China says it has the right to determine the Dalai Lama’s reincarnation, as it claims sovereignty over Tibet since ancient times,
Temperatures in some parts of Taiwan are expected to fall sharply to lows of 15°C later this week as seasonal northeasterly winds strengthen, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said today. It is to be the strongest cold wave to affect northern Taiwan this autumn, while Chiayi County in the southwest and some parts of central Taiwan are likely to also see lower temperatures due to radiational cooling, which occurs under conditions of clear skies, light winds and dry weather, the CWA said. Across Taiwan, temperatures are to fall gradually this week, dropping to 15°C to 16°C in the early hours of Wednesday
RSS