Taiwan Man Arrested in Thai Woman's Death, Body Found in Work Freezer
A 43-year-old Taiwanese man was arrested after his Thai girlfriend's body was discovered in a workplace freezer in Taichung; he confessed to strangling her in a Taipei hotel when she ended their relationship.
Taiwanese media reports the arrest of a 43-year-old Taiwanese man suspected of killing his Thai girlfriend and storing her body in a freezer at his workplace. The suspect, surnamed Wu, was an employee at a technology company located in a high-end office building in Taichung's District 7. The victim was a 36-year-old Thai woman, and the couple had been dating for approximately one year.
The Thai woman traveled to Taiwan to visit her boyfriend on September 2 and was scheduled to return on September 14. When she failed to return as planned, her family could not reach her, so they asked a friend in Taiwan to report her missing to police on the afternoon of September 18. Wan Hua District Police reviewed travel records and CCTV footage, discovering the woman had checked into a hotel in the Chengdu Road area in Ximen on the night of September 12. Her boyfriend visited her hotel room and left early the next morning carrying a large black suitcase, which he loaded into his vehicle and drove to Taichung.
Suspicious behavior of the 43-year-old Taiwanese suspect, surnamed Wu, was detected in CCTV footage. Police reported the findings to prosecutors and obtained a search warrant to detain him for questioning. Preliminary investigation revealed that the 36-year-old Thai woman, known as Art, died from strangulation. After gathering sufficient evidence, police tracked down and arrested the suspect.
According to investigation findings, when the couple's relationship encountered problems, the woman traveled to Taiwan to end the relationship. She checked into a hotel in Taipei's Ximen area on September 2 and raised the subject with her boyfriend while staying at the hotel. After that, no one saw or heard from her again.
The suspect claimed that his Thai girlfriend wanted to end their relationship, which sparked an argument in the hotel room. He then strangled her with his hands until she died, stuffed her body into the travel suitcase he had brought, loaded it into his vehicle, and drove nearly 170 kilometers to his workplace in Taichung. He brought the suitcase containing the body into the office and hid it in a large freezer next to his desk. Since most of the company's employees worked remotely, no one discovered the body throughout the entire week.
Police noted that the large travel suitcase raised suspicion because similar large suitcases have been used to transport bodies in other murder cases previously. Wan Hua District Police officers took the suspect to his workplace in Taichung on September 19 and discovered the woman's body in the freezer. After a forensic pathologist from the prosecutor's office conducted an autopsy, police brought the suspect back to Taipei and handed him over to the prosecutor's office to proceed with murder charges.
