Police yesterday named a 64-year-old former tenant as a suspect in a house fire in Taichung’s Wurih District (烏日) that left a 17-year-old and her 50-year-old mother dead.
Wurih Precinct Deputy Chief Hung Ming-chiang (洪明強) told a news conference that a van without license plates belonging to the suspect, surnamed Hsu (許), was found badly damaged by the fire at the scene.
The Taichung Fire Bureau said it received a report of the blaze at the two-story sheet-metal building on Wuguang Road at 2:15am yesterday morning.
Photo: CNA
Most of the flames and smoke were coming from the ground floor of the building, it said, adding that the fire was extinguished at 2:44am.
The mother and daughter were found on the upper floor of the building with no signs of life and transported to two different hospitals, the bureau said.
The mother, who had sustained second-degree burns to 80 percent of her body, was in critical condition at Chung Shan Medical University Hospital in Taichung, but later declared dead.
Her 17-year-old daughter sustained second-degree burns to 20 percent of her body and was later pronounced dead at Asia University Hospital, the bureau said.
Police said Hsu was a tenant of a property owned by the victims’ family for more than 20 years, but was served an eviction notice in July.
A member of the landlord’s family, who identified Hsu as a suspect to police, said he believed the family’s former tenant might have caused the fire because of the contentious nature of the eviction.
In addition, the landlord’s family was seeking damages from Hsu, whom they accused of sexually harassing the teenage victim, police said.
Hsu was located at 4:20am after his daughter contacted police to report that he had attempted suicide, police said.
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