Over the past three years, no fewer than 70,000 of the island's taxi drivers have had their palm prints analyzed in the search for Peng Wan-ru's (
Police say they have never given up hope of catching the man, which they still to this day believe was the taxi driver who picked Peng up that fateful night. The widely held hunch has led police to conduct thousands of roadside inspections on both taxi drivers and other drivers in possession of an older model of the yellow Ford Telstar Peng was last seen climbing into.
To date, police claim to have checked more than 30,000 taxis in extensive regions south of Chiayi County. Not only the drivers, but their families, too.
Put together with spot checks conducted on bus and truck drivers across the island, the total number of people investigated comes to more than 130,000.
While the police force's efforts have no doubt been tireless, however, they have born little fruit, resulting in scathing public criticism being directed against the force for its perceived inefficiency.
The search has not been without its dramatic moments. On at least three occasions, police thought they were on to a certain lead as people came out to admit they had been Peng's killer. Public hopes were soon dashed, however, after initial investigation negated the claims.
Two different men came out with claims about a year apart -- one in July 1998 and the other in June 1999 -- but were later found to have been serving jail terms at the time of Peng's murder. As it turned out, they had been trying to put their families in line for the reward of NT$22 million from police for information leading to Peng's killer.
The third disappointment came in September this year when a taxi driver was found dead in his car with a suicide note, saying, "I apologize about Peng Wan-ru." Unfortunately, blood and fingerprint tests conducted on his body forced police to rule out the possibility that he had indeed been responsible for Peng's murder.
The police's efforts have spawned intense debate between supporters of law enforcement agencies in Taiwan and their most vocal critics, who say Peng's case is the clearest evidence of just how incompetent the nation's public security system is.
Peng's husband, Hung Wan-sheng (
"If the killer is ever arrested, it will be thanks to God's mercy," Hung said. "We've never given up hope that the case would be solved some day. But I've also had to come to terms with the reality that it's not something we can force.
"It was a terrible trauma to go through three years ago, but we've survived. I know many people have focused their attention on the investigation and raised their hopes that the murderer will be found -- which I myself have always hoped for. But I think a top priority now is to see what efforts we can make to ensure another such tragedy is prevented from happening," Hung said.
Peng's 1996 murder came at a sensitive time for the government, as it took place soon after another high-profile killing -- the Nov. 21 assassination of former Taoyuan County Commissioner Liu Pang-yu (
The investigation of the brutal Taoyuan assassination has likewise yielded little progress.
"The longer an investigation, the more difficult it is to find out what the `truth' is," a police official admitted.
When asked whether the police are thinking of taking any new, fresh approaches in investigating Peng's case, the police official gave a standard reply: "We're working hard to examine more taxi drivers in Taiwan."
A Chinese freighter that allegedly snapped an undersea cable linking Taiwan proper to Penghu County is suspected of being owned by a Chinese state-run company and had docked at the ports of Kaohsiung and Keelung for three months using different names. On Tuesday last week, the Togo-flagged freighter Hong Tai 58 (宏泰58號) and its Chinese crew were detained after the Taipei-Penghu No. 3 submarine cable was severed. When the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) first attempted to detain the ship on grounds of possible sabotage, its crew said the ship’s name was Hong Tai 168, although the Automatic Identification System (AIS)
An Akizuki-class destroyer last month made the first-ever solo transit of a Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force ship through the Taiwan Strait, Japanese government officials with knowledge of the matter said yesterday. The JS Akizuki carried out a north-to-south transit through the Taiwan Strait on Feb. 5 as it sailed to the South China Sea to participate in a joint exercise with US, Australian and Philippine forces that day. The Japanese destroyer JS Sazanami in September last year made the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force’s first-ever transit through the Taiwan Strait, but it was joined by vessels from New Zealand and Australia,
CHANGE OF MIND: The Chinese crew at first showed a willingness to cooperate, but later regretted that when the ship arrived at the port and refused to enter Togolese Republic-registered Chinese freighter Hong Tai (宏泰號) and its crew have been detained on suspicion of deliberately damaging a submarine cable connecting Taiwan proper and Penghu County, the Coast Guard Administration said in a statement yesterday. The case would be subject to a “national security-level investigation” by the Tainan District Prosecutors’ Office, it added. The administration said that it had been monitoring the ship since 7:10pm on Saturday when it appeared to be loitering in waters about 6 nautical miles (11km) northwest of Tainan’s Chiang Chun Fishing Port, adding that the ship’s location was about 0.5 nautical miles north of the No.
COORDINATION, ASSURANCE: Separately, representatives reintroduced a bill that asks the state department to review guidelines on how the US engages with Taiwan US senators on Tuesday introduced the Taiwan travel and tourism coordination act, which they said would bolster bilateral travel and cooperation. The bill, proposed by US senators Marsha Blackburn and Brian Schatz, seeks to establish “robust security screenings for those traveling to the US from Asia, open new markets for American industry, and strengthen the economic partnership between the US and Taiwan,” they said in a statement. “Travel and tourism play a crucial role in a nation’s economic security,” but Taiwan faces “pressure and coercion from the Chinese Communist Party [CCP]” in this sector, the statement said. As Taiwan is a “vital trading
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