Elderly Woman Murdered for Money
A man in New Taipei City’s Taishan district has been arrested on suspicion of murder after the body of an elderly woman was found dumped by the seaside near Linkou yesterday, December 20.
Police forensics investigators making an initial examination of the corpse at the scene discovered that the woman had obviously been murdered. There were signs of a heavy blow to the back of the head, strangulation marks around her neck, and a plastic bag had been put over her head.
Police immediately launched a homicide investigation and identified the corpse as belonging to a resident of Taishan District named Lai, who had been reported missing on December 18.
A 45 year-old suspect named Hsu, was arrested later the same day after a vehicle was identified using traffic camera video footage. Hsu, who was the woman’s neighbor and was well acquainted with her, confessed to police that he had murdered the woman on December 18.
Hsu, who had rented a car-parking space to Lai, lured her into the parking garage on the pretext of discussing an issue. When Lai wasn’t looking, Hsu hit the 155cm tall, 69 year-old woman in the back of the head with an aluminium baseball bat, then strangled her to death with a plastic hose.
According to Hsu’s confession, the motivation for the murder was money. Hsu owed money including a mortgage and an NT$800,000 car loan. After murdering Lai, Hsu ransacked her home and stole NT$60,000 before driving to the seaside to dump the body.
Ms Lai’s family today said that after their elderly relative had gone missing, they had called on neighbors, including Hsu, to ask if they had seen her. Mr Hsu had expressed concern, and joined the family in the search.
Mr Hsu is married and has two high-school aged sons.
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