Police in Kaohsiung are investigating a possible murder after a woman’s body was found in a plastic container on Thursday.
The bucket was found by a person operating an excavator on a construction site at a private lot next to the Ciaotou Sugar Refinery Station (橋頭糖廠站) on the Kaohsiung Mass Rapid Transit system.
Police investigator Chen Jen-cheng (陳仁正) yesterday said police had reviewed missing person reports and have narrowed the identity of the victim down to about 20 possible people.
Physical evidence suggested she might have been a Fongshan District (鳳山) woman surnamed Lin (林), who was about 60 years old when she went missing in 2014, Chen said.
An autopsy of the partially decomposed body showed broken bones in the neck area, which police believe to be the cause of death and has led them to suspect she was murdered, Chen said.
As the body was stuffed into the container and presumably carried to the site, police said that they suspect at least two people were involved.
In a separate matter, a man was found dead in a rural area of Miaoli County’s Houlong District (後龍) yesterday, police said, adding that he was apparently electrocuted by a power line.
The man, identified as a 44-year-old surnamed Lu (呂), was killed the day before when he allegedly tried to steal the metal wire to sell, Miaoli police said.
They said they found tools he might have used to remove the wire nearby, including a ladder latched on a power pole, as well as wire cutters, a hammer and metal chains for scaling the pole.
Lu’s hands had electrocution marks and his skull was broken, likely from landing on his head after falling, police said.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
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