Police yesterday said they might have identified a suspect in the murder of Tainan City Fishermen’s Association chairman Lin Shih-chieh (林士傑) based on DNA evidence.
Before his death, Lin was among 10 people acquitted in April after being indicted by prosecutors in March last year in a vote-buying case related to the Tainan City Council speaker elections on Dec. 25, 2022.
He was convicted of smuggling firearms into Taiwan 20 years ago, and later entered politics mainly aligning with the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) faction in Tainan. His daughter is a DPP Tainan City Councilor.
Photo: CNA
Police collected material, including fingerprints and DNA, from vehicles believed to have been used by the suspect, and the motel room he stayed at the night before the shooting, Jhang Wun-yuan (張文源), commander of the Tainan City Police Department’s Criminal Investigation Corps, told a news conference.
Investigators made a breakthrough yesterday, as a DNA sample and fingerprints were linked to a man with a previous criminal record, Jhang said, declining to provide further information.
The suspect came up to Lin when he left his residence in Tainan’s South District (南區) for a hike at 5:45am on Sunday last week. The suspect held up two handguns and shot Lin 11 times, he said.
Surveillance footage of the crime scene and the suspect running to his getwaway car, showed he has a lean physique, but he concealed his face by covering his head with a hoodie and wearing dark glasses and a mask, Jhang said.
Investigators have recovered the suspect’s two getaway cars, a Honda Civic in Tainan and a Mitsubishi Lancer, which the suspect drove to Kaohsiung’s Tashu District (大樹). He then got on a scooter and headed toward Pingtung County, Jhang said.
The coast guard and police have boosted monitoring and patrol activities at airports and harbors, including small piers for fishing boats, he said.
As the suspect used fire and acid to try to destroy his fingerprints and DNA in the first car — in which the two guns were found — and acid in the second, the suspect likely has ties to organized crime and was possibly hired for the killing, National Police Agency officials told local Chinese-language media.
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