Taipei police yesterday said they are examining new information about the death of a British national whose Taiwanese widow is under investigation for the suspected poisoning of an Australian student in Taiwan last year.
The case relates to an incident in April last year, in which Alex Shorey, a 24-year-old Australian exchange student, was hospitalized in Taipei for what was later determined to be poisoning by the rodenticide superwarfarin.
During questioning, Shorey’s Taiwanese girlfriend, surnamed Yang (楊), admitted mixing rat poison into a glass of juice, but denied that she had intentionally poisoned him, saying that she had intended to drink it herself.
Photo: Taipei Times
Shorey moved back to Australia on May 3 last year, while Yang was referred to the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office earlier this year to be investigated on suspicion of aggravated assault.
However, a new lead in the case came to light in January, when a British national came to Taiwan looking for information about his older brother, who had moved to Taiwan with his wife several years earlier and subsequently lost contact with his family.
Using the information provided by the man, police discovered that his brother had been married to Yang, but had died in January last year, just months before Shorey was poisoned, police said.
Yang’s husband died with symptoms of poisoning similar to those experienced by Shorey, police said, leading them to notify prosecutors that the cases were possibly connected.
Local news reports said that doctors who treated the British man suspected that he might have ingested rat poison, but released his body to Yang without ordering a forensic autopsy.
Yang had the body cremated.
Following the revelations, prosecutors asked the Taipei Police Department’s Zhongshan Precinct to open an investigation into the man’s death.
The precinct yesterday said it had conducted searches in connection with the case earlier this month.
Yang has not yet been charged in either case.
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