A Taichung man who murdered two people and buried their bodies in polyethylene drums was sentenced to death on Wednesday by Taichung District Court.
After a one-year trial, Hsu Teh-yi (???), 36, received two death sentences -- one for each of the murders -- while six of his accomplices received sentences ranging from 12 years to life in prison.
The ruling can be appealed.
According to the indictment, in early 2017, Hsu, who ran an underground real estate and loan business, met and began dating a 15-year-old girl surnamed Chen (?).
Not long before that, Hsu had hired 25-year-old Wang Wen-chung (???) to work under him, and later hired Wang's 16-year-old girlfriend, surnamed Tsai (?).
According to prosecutors, when Tsai learned that Wang's work for Hsu involved him in various criminal activities and urged him to quit, the two men became suspicious and decided to kill her.
In May 2017, Hsu invited the couple to his home for a drink. When Tsai went to rest after having too much to drink, Hsu, Wang and Chen followed her into the bedroom.
While taking turns restraining Tsai, Wang and Chen struck her on the head with hammers, before Hsu fatally stabbed her in the chest with a pair of scissors, prosecutors said.
After committing the murder, the three placed Tsai's body in a polyethylene drum, which they buried on a property belonging to Hsu's family in Fengyuan District, Taichung.
The second murder occurred in 2018, when Hsu became acquainted with Lin Yu-ting (???), 26, and Chang Chih-chiao (???), 48, through his loan business.
Chang introduced Hsu to 54-year-old Huang Chiu-yuan (???), whose friend, surnamed Ho (?), was looking to take out a loan using a property he owned as collateral.
According to prosecutors, when Hsu received the ownership documents for the land, he simply sold it and pocketed the gains, leading Ho to file a civil fraud case against him.
Hsu, fearing Huang's testimony in the case, devised a plan to kill him, with help from Chen, Lin, Wang and Chang, as well as three new accomplices -- Teng Jui-ming (???), Sung Wen-ta (???) and Chao Tzu-chen (???), all in their early 20s.
On June 5, 2019, Hsu and his accomplices kidnapped Huang as he was leaving the Taichung District Prosecutors Office and took him to a dog kennel in the city's Taiping District, where they beat him and injected him with heroin before shooting him to death.
After committing the murder, prosecutors said, they placed Huang's body in a polyethylene drum, filled it with cement powder, and buried it in a bamboo forest on a roadside in Tongluo Township, Miaoli County.
Following Huang's disappearance, police opened an investigation. After receiving several tips, they made their first arrests on Nov. 16, 2020, and discovered the bodies of Tsai and Huang two days later.
In addition to sentencing Hsu to death, the court also on Wednesday sentenced Wang and Lin to life imprisonment, Chao to 19 years and six months, Chang to 18 years, and Sung and Teng to 12 years and eight months each.
Chen's case, which is being tried in juvenile court, has yet to conclude.
Source: Focus Taiwan News Channel