A 24-year-old Malaysian student, Irene Chong from Sibu, Sarawak who was studying in Tainan, Taiwan, has been found dead, believed to have been murdered.
According to Apple Daily, Irene was on a call with her uni-mate at 8.45pm telling her she was on the way back to hostel from their University. However, her friend said she haven’t reached hostel at 11pm and not reachable in her mobile phone.
Thus, they posted a missing person note on Dcard with a photo of her, asking public nearby whether anyone knew her whereabout. The university then lodged a police report on her missing.
The police then found CCTV footage that showed the victim walking along a road in Gueiren District, close to a railway overpass, at around 8 pm on Oct 28, before she disappearing from sight, reported by Bernama.
A search was conducted in nearby area, and they found a shoe that confirmed belongs to the victim, which led police to believe that she had been abducted in that area.
In the same area, police also zeroed in on a private car that was found to contain bloodstains and a bag of female underwear.
The vehicle registration number led police to the 28-year-old suspect, who was arrested Oct 29 night and confessed to strangling the victim with rope and dumping the body in the mountainous Alian District in Kaohsiung. Shortly after his confession, police found the victim’s body.
According to their initial investigation, police said, it appeared that the victim did not know the suspect, who is believed to have been preying on women walking alone on the lonely road near the railway overpass in Tainan.
The suspect was believed strangled the victim’s neck with rope and dragged her to his car. He only realised she stop breathing when they were in the car. However, the suspect still took off her clothes and molested her.
He was with her dead body for 19 hours before dumping her at Alian district.
The case has been handed over to the Ciaotou District Prosecutors Office in Kaohsiung for further investigation.