After a man was arrested for murdering and dismembering his wife, the prosecutor was seeking the death penalty, which the killer also asked for. But many people from all walks of life, including the victim's children and parents, pleaded for him to be given a lenient sentence.
(I can't find any English sources on this case so I'm stuck using the names Google Translate gives me and not the local Romanization.
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On February 6, 2005, two men were dumpster-diving through the garbage bins in Toufen, a small city in Taiwan's Miaoli County, looking for discarded household appliances to use in their homes. They were pressed for time, as the garbage trucks would soon arrive to pick up the waste.
Using their flashlights, the two searched through the bins when suddenly a bright, metallic object caught their attention. Moving closer, they saw it was the logo of a deep blue travel bag. The bag was new, its protective film still intact.
It was a large, brand-new bag that the owner obviously didn't want, so they got to work claiming it for themselves. Their first issue came when one of them grabbed it by the handle and tried to move it. The bag was surprisingly heavy, around 30 to 40 kilograms. He had to have his friend help him lift it out of the bin and onto the sidewalk.
When they unzipped the bag, they saw that whatever was inside must've been big. It was also wrapped in two layers of black plastic bags and felt cold and soft. Without a second thought, they tore open the bag and were greeted by the sight of what looked to be human breasts.
After shining their flashlights, they saw for sure that the bag contained a headless and limbless human torso. Under the left armpit was a bloodstained white towel, along with a bundle of tissues soaked in blood.
The two ran non-stop over two kilometers to their nearest police station, and even upon arriving, it still took half an hour for them to calm down enough and tell the police what they had seen.
Soon, numerous police officers and ten detectives searched the remaining garbage bins for the rest of the body. Their hour-long search yielded nothing.
The police investigating the travel bag
With no results, the police called in 30 investigators as reinforcements. They then conducted a thorough search of 58 garbage bins along the road and even stopped 22 garbage trucks to search them.
The police searching the dumpsters
This operation began at 4:40 a.m. and didn't stop until 10:30 a.m. The police didn't find any additional remains, and all they did find was a large blood stain in front of a garbage bin at an intersection. After failing to find any more of the body, the police had to make do with what they did have.
According to the medical examiner, the torso belonged to a woman with Type A blood; she likely stood at 170 cm tall, weighed between 60 and 70 kg, and was estimated to be between 30 and 40 years old.
Based on rigor mortis and the state of blood loss, she had likely been dead for 33 to 36 hours before the torso was discovered. placing the time of death between 2:00 p.m. and 5:00 p.m. on February 4. The dismemberment itself likely took place two hours after her passing.
Now for the most notable identifying features. Below the navel, there was a roughly 30 cm long C-section scar. Then, on her left buttock, there was an oval birthmark measuring 1.5 × 1.2 cm, with an old 10 cm long scar located just above it.
She had sustained a total of 12 stab wounds. Most were on the torso, but one was on the shoulder and the other the throat. One had pierced the heart, while 7 had punctured her lungs. Based on cotton fibers found in the wound, she had likely been wearing cotton clothing when she died. The fatal blows were the stabs to the throat and heart.
There were also 6 wounds to both her back and the back of the neck, but those were likely done post-mortem during the dismemberment. According to the medical examiner, they were done "accidently".
The head and limbs were severed neatly at the joints, suggesting the killer possessed knowledge of human anatomy or was a butcher. The dark red muscle tissue on the limbs indicated post-mortem severance, while the bright red neck stump indicated the victim's neck was cut while she was still alive.
Both hemothorax and pericardial hemorrhaging were nowhere to be found, leading the coroner to conclude that the order of the stabs likely went as follows. First, she was stabbed in the back, the throat before moving onto the right upper shoulder, back down to the left chest and finally the heart. Based on the wounds, the murder weapon was a long, narrow, double-edged knife, while an electric saw was used to dismember the rest of her remains.
The bag was from the Valentino brand, but that still wasn't good enough to identify the killer or victim. Both the bag and the blood-stained towel and tissues had been wiped clean of fingerprints.
Within a 600-meter radius of the garbage bin, major transportation routes intersected, including the China National Highway 318, County Road 124, and National Freeway No. 1. The bloodstain found was also located near as well. This led the police to believe the killer was from Hsinchu, Taoyuan, or Taipei and drove to Toufen to dispose of the body parts and to make them harder to link to him.
The police also believed she likely worked in the "entertainment industry" and worked for "special establishments." I.e a sex worker. Those in said industry also moved around a lot and had minimal contact with their family. That would also explain why no one matching her description had been reported missing either.
As they had no leads to identify their victim, the police published pictures of the birthmark and scars in the newspapers and broadcasted notices on TV.
Next, the police pulled CCTV from the surrounding area so they could capture the murderer dropping off the bag. Unfortunately, the garbage bin was located at a blind spot, with the nearest camera situated 330 meters southwest.
Over 20,000 vehicles passed by, but police had no precise time for when the bag was deposited, nor any certainty that the murderer was among the drivers. Police also checked 200 missing-person reports, but none yielded any leads. They had to wait for someone to come forward.
On February 7, a man simply named "Du" came forward. Du was from Taipei but drove to Toufen with his niece to speak to the police. The man wanted to report his sister, 35-year-old Du Mouhui, missing. Mohui had similar-looking scars and had recently given birth via a C-section. She left home on February 2, and her phone had been turned off since then. Mouhui was also working in the "entertainment industry".
Enough lined up for the police to take DNA samples from Mohui's daughter to compare to the torso. The police were shocked to see them come back negative and likely even more shocked when Mouhui turned up alive and well later that same night. The large bloodstains found in front of the other garbage bins were confirmed to be animal blood.
Having one lead not pan out was bad enough; having a piece of evidence end up being unrelated this whole time might've been even worse. Not having anything else to go on and desperately needing that to change. The police decided to once again hunt for the rest of the body, but by now, had the rest of her remains been disposed of the same way as the torso, then they might be lost to the police by now.
On February 9, the police went to the public landfill in Toufen. Being a small city, it only had one landfill, so if the rest of the remains were disposed of within city limits, they would've had to have ended up here.
The police, along with 60 investigators and uniformed officers, sent bloodhounds and cadaver dogs to the landfill. Despite excavating over 16 tons of garbage and trash, they recovered nothing. The rest of the body remained missing.
The police searching the landfill
Luckily, they still had something new to go on. The torso was sent to a laboratory for further examination, and the victim's gastric fluid contained Clothiapine, a medication used to treat psychiatric disorders. Clothiapine was not something anyone could've just went to a walk-in clinic or a pharmacy to obtain it so the police checked with all the major hospitals in the area.
The police then checked with hospitals across Taichung, Miaoli, Hsinchu, and Taoyuan. Among the four of them, 7,100 female patients were prescribed the drug, with 3,000 of them being mothers between 30 and 40 years old. The police checked in with all of them, but each and every one was accounted for.
By now, the police were worried that the Clothiapine might've been obtained from outside of Taiwan and that the victim was a foreigner herself, something which would've made identifying her even more difficult.
Next, they decided to focus on just the travel bag for now. The bag was indeed real and not a counterfeit. It was also manufactured in Hsinchu. On February 11, the police contacted the factory's manager, who said that the type of bag had only been sold in Taoyuan, New Taipei, and Taipei, with over 804 units being produced.
The police in those three cities looked into the 34 supermarkets and specialty stores that had the bag in stock and reviewed footage from over 171 CCTV cameras from all the stores. And finally, they were left with what might be a lead as to the killer.
On February 5, at approximately 1:05–1:36 a.m., a man of apparent middle age was seen entering the A-Mart Shopping Center in Taoyuan twice. He was approximately 170 cm tall, wore glasses, and appeared to be in his 30s. The store was located 400 meters north of the highway leading to Toufen, near the garbage bins.
A still from one of the CCTV cameras
He purchased a bag of the same brand and design, but that wasn't all. He also bought a roll of large black plastic bags, three large white shopping bags, a pair of rubber gloves, and three bottles of dish detergent. He made the purchase in cash.
When he entered the first time, he was wearing a white coat with blue sleeves, but when he came back only a half hour later to buy just the travel bag, he was dressed in a black turtleneck sweater and trying to hide his appearance and the clothes he was wearing.
The police once more broadcasted the footage of him on TV and put pictures of him in the newspapers, but they were short on hope that anything would come from it. The image of his face was unclear as the camera was placed far away from him, and the street lights outside were dim, meaning the exterior cameras were hardly much better. Their pessimism might have been the correct outlook because nobody came forward.
With the likely killer unidentified as well, the police shifted focus back to their Jane Doe. On February 15, they visited the aforementioned "special establishments" in Hsinchu, Taoyuan, New Taipei, Taipei, and Keelung with photos of the torso's identifying features to all those who frequented them. They remained persistent and kept showing up for over a week, but nobody would ever recognize the scars or the birthmark.
Next, they appealed to those who knew of any foreigners they hadn't seen in a while. Their investigation focused on female foreign workers, such as Filipino maids and women from mainland China.
With their latest endeavor to identify the victim failing, they started looking into the killer once more. They pulled footage from other cameras near the store. 600 meters from the store, a camera at an intersection was standing in front of a convenience store a few dozen meters away. The quality of the recording was much clearer and the position of the camera more favorable, so the police finally had a clear image of the killer's face.
On February 23, police again published notices featuring his photograph in newspapers and on television, feeling more confident of recognition.
On February 24, Taoyuan police received an anonymous phone call. The caller recognized the images and said they resembled 39-year-old computer engineer Wang Xi-hong, who lived in an apartment building 400 meters from the store and 650 meters from the highway.
The police arrived at the apartment building with a picture of the suspect in hand. They questioned all the residents who likewise identified him as Xi-hong. Unfortunately, Xi-hong was not home, his neighbours hadn't seen him around the apartment for days as well.
Wang Xi-hong was born in Hsinchu County in 1966. After graduating from high school, he studied computer technology for three years at a technical school. Upon graduation, he successfully applied for and was hired as an engineer at a computer company in Taoyuan, due to his technical skills.
While working for the company, he met Xiao Zhang-zhu, a work colleague of the same age.
The two soon fell in love with each other and married in 1988. Less than three years later, Zhang-zhu would give birth to the couple's two daughters.
With two children to raise, their finances tightened, forcing Xi-hong to quit his job and work from home. He developed software and often helped neighbors with their computers free of charge. He was described as a gentle, polite, kind-hearted person and a good father. Meanwhile, Zhang-zhu continued working at the computer company.
By the end of 1999, Zhang-zhu suddenly quit her job for seemingly no reason and started acting depressed and wouldn't speak much with her neighbors. Xi-hong adopted these same traits not long after.
Then, the two started to argue very frequently, with some of the arguments even getting violent. Eventually, the two decided to file for divorce, but even once the divorce was finalized, they continued living together.
A few days before he was identified as a suspect, he gave away all of his furniture and appliances to several of his neighbours completely for free. He told them that he wanted to move back to his old home in Hsinchu. When asked where Zhang-zhu was, he told his neighbours that she was doing the same with her family home.
Zhang-zhu had undergone a C-section, stood at 172 cm, weighed in around 65 kg and matched the age range for the decedent.
The couple's two daughters, who had been staying with other relatives, also hadn't heard from their mother but told friends that she had gone on a trip to Southern Taiwan.
According to Zhang-zhu's phone records, her last call was made on February 3, and her phone had been turned off since February 5th. It was becoming increasingly clear that the torso likely belonged to Zhang-zhu.
Luckily, Xi-hong wouldn't remain on the run for long. In fact, he didn't even seem to run at all. On February 25, Xi-hong had been spotted at an intersection in Taoyuan. He had been standing completely still at said intersection for over an hour.
When the police arrived, he was still standing there, staring blankly and ignoring the officers. He offered no resistance when arrested. His first words were, "I did something wrong."
According to him, the murder of his wife was years in the making. He had suffered constant mental and psychal abuse from Zhang-zhu, which he referred to as "dual domestic abuse," and he had finally snapped.
When she began acting erratically in 1999, he worried that Zhang-zhu was suffering from some form of mental illness and even took her to the hospital where doctors diagnosed her as having bipolar disorder. Zhang-zhu was in denial about the diagnosis and refused to accept any treatment. Nonetheless, Xi-hong managed to get her prescribed some antidepressants.
The pescription wasn't enough and since she didn't recieve any professional help, Zhang-zhu's illness only grew worse. She then abruptly quit her job and did not attempt to look for a new one. She spent her days either playing games or staring blankly while Xi-hong managed the household.
Zhang-zhu would frequently lash out at Xi-hong for what appeared to be no reason. She accused him of being incompetent and not making enough money. On several occasions, she physically assaulted him, with two such incidents requiring Xi-hong to be hospitalized.
One time, she threw a teacup at Xi-hong, resulting in a 20 cm long scar under his left armpit. This was the inciting incident which led to Xi-hong filing divorce procedings. Although by now, Xi-hong would be well within his rights to kick Zhang-zhu out of his home, he opted not to so that their children could still have their mother.
In 2002, Zhang-zhu's mother was diagnosed with uremia and had to undergo dialysis treatment every week while her father had been elderly and ill, constantly requiring a caretaker Lastly, her brother had purchased another house. This left Zhang-zhu's side of the family approaching debt and leaving Xi-hong to have to pay the costs of his father-in-law's caretaker. The extra expense made Xi-hong's stressful life even worse, and soon he was given his own diagnosis in 2003, for depression. The Clothiapine found in the deceased's stomach was Xi-hong's.
Zhang-zhu's behaviour didn't change and she continued to spend her days not working, playing games and browsing the internet. She would still erupt in anger at Xi-hong when things didn't go her way. And her behaviour was only getting worse. In one such case, she held a knife to her daughter's neck to force Xi-hong into doing things how she wanted.
Xi-hong had considered running away several times, and he actually did leave his home 10 times. But he would always go back so that his daughters wouldn't be left alone with their increasingly unstable mother.
On February 2, 2005, Xi-hong brought his daughters to their parents' house in Hsinchu for winter break so that they could have some respite from the family's domestic situation.
On February 4, Zhang-zhu once again lashed out at Xi-hong over a matter that was simply described as "trivial". This time, Xi-hong finally called her out for not helping out around the house at all, despite spending all her time at home and the heavy financial burden placed solely on him. He asked her to arrange for her parents to move to Taoyuan to save money on having to pay for caretakers.
In responce, Zhang-zhu got even angerier, stingy, incompetent. criticized him for not earning enough money and failing to provide for his family. In responce, Xi-hong said, "Unfilial daughter, isn't it that you don't want to take care of your mother?" before making his way to his bedroom.
In responce to this remark, Zhang-zhu barged her way into the bedroom, slapped him across the face and made her way to the kitchen where she grabbed a double-edged fruit knife and tried to stab Xi-hong in the head. Xi-hong fought back, wrestled the knife from her hands and stabbed her once in the left chest, pushed her away, and then stabbed her twice in the back.
Zhang-zhu laid on the ground, and once Xi-hong realized what he had done, rather than call for help, he decided to take what he felt was revenge. He picked the knife off the floor and stabbed Zhang-zhu in the throat and shoulder once more before stabbing her chest nine more times. Zhang-zhu passed from blood loss after only two minutes.
Xi-hong considered turning himself in but had nobody to take custody of their children, so he instead decided to dispose of the body in hopes he could get away with it.
He dragged Zhang-zhu's body into the bathroom and placed her body in the bathtub and used a cloth to wipe all the blood off of the floor.
He spent over 5 hours cleaning the home before heading to the store to buy the bags, dishwashing detergent, and gloves. On his way home from the first trip, he realized that he had forgotten the travel bag so he went back and changed his clothes in case the police would recognize him.
The products Xi-hong had purchased.
After returning home, he put on the gloves and used a utility knife to cut the flesh and skin off the bones and a saw to cut off the head and limbs. By the end, Zhang-zhu's body had been cut into 6 pieces. He then stuffed the pieces into four black garbage bags, which were then wrapped with the other bags. Then he put the torso in the travel bag.
He took a brief 4 hour nap to plan his next course of action, and when he woke up, he got to work. He placed all the bags inside the trunk of his car and began driving. While in Zhudong, located in Hsinchu County, he came across a garbage truck collecting trash.
He parked his car and hastily placed the bags containing her arms and head in front of the bins. The garbagemen, assuming he was a local resident dropping off trash. The extra bags were to stop the blood seaping thorugh them and the color wasn't clear enough for them to see the body parts through them. Therefore, they threw the bags in their truck without a second thought.
Xi-hong leading police to the garbage bins.
He then spent another hour driving before finding himself in Toufen. He threw the bags containing Zhang-zhu's legs into a trash bin before continuing his drive. By the time it came to dispose of the travel bag and torso, it was rush hour, and so discarding it would attract too much attention. So, instead, he had to hide behind his car and stuff it into the bottom of one of the garbage bins.
On his way back home, he threw the knife, saw and his and Zhang-zhu's bloodstained clothes away at a rural roadside. He then went back to his home in Taoyuan to use the cleaning products to scrub away whatever bloodstains remained.
On February 7, he went to his parents' home in Hsinchu and lied to his parents and children about Zhang-zhu, telling them that she had gone back to her family home in Keelung.
On February 27, based on his confession, police in Hsinchu and other parts of Miaoli County deployed 200 officers to search three separate landfills for the murder weapon and the rest of Zhang-zhu's body. Desperate, they appealed to the public for volunteers to assist in the search. As with the Toufen police's search of their own landfill, they found nothing.
One of the landfills being searched
On March 8, 2005, DNA samples were taken from Zhang-zhu's daughters and compared to the torso. The results came back as a 99.9999% match, which once and for all identified the torso as belonging to Xiao Zhang-zhu. After she was identified, the prosecutor moved forth with the murder charges.
After he was charged, Xi-hong was quick to retract his confession and offer up a new one. His next confession omitted everything that made him look sympathetic or painted Zhang-zhu in a negative light. He denied that she had suffered from any mental illness, was ever violent with him and told the police that he murdered her in cold blood and asked the prosecutor to have him sentenced to death as quickly as possible. The prosecutor was seeking the death penalty regardless.
Despite this, almost everyone who knew the couple supported Xi-hong and corroborated his initial statement. The police's own medical examination revealed his numerous scars and wounds. Some were recent and others had long healed.
One neighbour said "I often saw the defendant with serious injuries, mostly scratches from nails, and his face would also have scratches.", another said "I once saw the victim (Xiao Zhangzhu) hold a knife to their daughter's neck, and the defendant asked me to hurry and call the police. I also saw injuries on him during the Lunar New Year." and lastly, another had this to say "Sometimes I would see the defendant with injuries, like in the summer when he wore short sleeves, he had a Band-Aid on his forehead, and his arms occasionally had large scratches."
The doctor who treated diagnosed Zhang-zhu said, "I once treated the victim. The victim complained about sleep problems and emotional outbursts. After diagnosis, the victim was found to have bipolar disorder, and I prescribed medication. However, the victim was emotionally resistant and refused to take the medication I prescribed, and the treatment was intermittent and could not be properly controlled."
Zhang-zhu's own mother said "It is true that my daughter paid for my treatment, but I also know that the money came from the defendant. The defendant has always taken very good care of us, and many times, he came to Keelung alone to visit us."
Both of the couple's daughters said their mother regularly attacked and even savagely beat their father, who never defended himself. They recounted instances such as Zhang-zhu grabbing his head and slamming it against the wall, scratching him with her nails, randomly smashing things in the home, pointing a knife at him, and even threatening to jump off a building with their daughters to force him to submit. His children were willing to forgive him.
They all pleaded for the court to show him leniency. It appeared that only the prosecutor and Xi-hong himself sought the death penalty. Even the police did not favor the death penalty and repeatedly urged Xi-hong to change his mind.
In court, other information came out as well. He took out a life insurance policy worth 4 million on himself with Zhang-zhu the sole beneficiary, likely so he could kill himself and leave his family with the money. Many online speculate that the reason he retracted his original confession was so he would be executed quickly and thus have his daughters get the money instead upon his death.
In 2006, the judge considered all these factors and therefore did not grant the prosecutor's request or accept Xi-hong's new statement. The judge concluded that Xi-hong was not of sound mind due to years of domestic abuse and Zhang-zhu family's willingness to forgive him. One of his daughters even told the court, "I just want to hug my dad."
When his trial ended, Wang Xi-hong was sentenced to 12 years' imprisonment. He was granted parole in August 2015 and, upon his release, changed his name. He now lives a quiet life.
Sources (In the comments)