TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Surveillance footage of a man surnamed Chen (陳) has surfaced showing him picking up a little girl on June 7 and on the same day carrying a quilted bag out of a building, which he later admitted contained the body of the girl, who had been reportedly entrusted to his care.
The biological mother of the four-year-old girl, surnamed Peng (彭), and her former boyfriend, Chen, allegedly abused the little girl to death in Taichung, transported her body, and buried her in a mountainous area in Nantou County’s Mingjian Township, CNA reported. Peng has confessed to burying her daughter in a shallow grave.
The body of the girl was dug up on Aug. 3. Peng, a single mother, and Chen were taken into police custody on Friday (Sept. 4) and held incommunicado in connection with the death of the child.
The surveillance footage recorded near a house Chen and his current girlfriend rented in Taichung City has been credited as the evidence that shed light on the heinous case. The footage showed Chen taking the girl home around 6 a.m. on July 7, but footage recorded around 9 p.m. on the same day showed Chen carrying out a quilted bag with the girl nowhere in sight.
Media reported that when police confronted Chen with the footage, he confessed that the girl died on June 7 and her body was stuffed into the bag, which he transported that night.
Chen has claimed that the girl drowned in his bathroom. Law enforcement said that evidence suggested the girl might have been abused for a long time before she died.
The deceased and her 10-year-old brother had been cared for by their grandmother, but later their mother took the girl away and broke contact with the rest of the family. The grandmother reported to the Taichung police on July 5 that Peng and the girl had gone missing.
Peng showed up at a police station the next day, but she could not clearly account for her daughter’s whereabouts.
Police began looking into the case when they received a letter alerting them that a little girl had been suspected abused to death and her body discarded.
(CNA video)
