This page has been translated from sources not in English and may contain inaccuracies or errors. 
Jinli Chen was a woman whose burning and mutilated body was discovered beside the Chishuiqi Trail in Changhua, Taiwan, beneath an acacia tree. Her body had been covered with bags and branches to conceal her body.
She was identified in 2009. Her ex-husband, his wife and two of their factory workers were charged and convicted of her murder.
Case[]
Disappearance[]
On the afternoon of 2 August 2002, Jinli Chen was playing cards at her neighbor's house when her ex-husband, Qingyan Qiu, entered and whispered with her. The two had been through several marriage disputes and had already divorced once before remarrying for the sake of their children and later separating again. Qiu was often regarded as lazy and cheated on Chen while she ran a factory she owned. After Qiu retreated downstairs, Chen would follow an hour later after she finished her game of cards. Following this, Chen was not seen alive ever again or with Qiu.
Discovery[]
On 25 August 2002, a citizen from the nearby city of Yuanlin was traveling to the Chishuiqi Trail in Changhua. She had gone to look for a restroom after parking her car when she noticed the faint smell of acetone nearby. Becoming unsettled but curious, the citizen searched the area before finding a "rectangular hill" beneath an acacia tree. Black plastic bags, sticks, and weeds had been piled onto it, so the citizen took a branch off a tree and pushed the items aside. She then noticed black plastic bags resembling a human beneath the weeds and bags. She continued to look at the plastic bag before seeing a burnt human foot sticking out. Police were immediately notified of this discovery by the woman.
Upon investigation, no immediate details could be found. The decedent had been burned while her clothes were still on, and a large mark caused by strangulation was found around her neck. Additionally, one of her inner thighs had been split, but it is unclear if this occurred postmortem. Corrosive liquid had been poured on her face to hinder identification, and her fingers had been extensively burned and corroded to impede the usage of her fingerprints. Her stomach was full of ethanol and antipsychotic medication, a combination likely used to make her fall unconscious before her murder. After receiving notice of these details, authorities initially believed she had died by suicide, but it was quickly disproven, and her death was instead ruled as a homicide.
Investigation[]
Initially, the decedent's murder was quickly ruled to have not resulted from a robbery as she was still wearing her jewelry. Due to the Buddhist ring she wore, she was believed to be foreign to Taiwan and likely originated from the Philippines, Malaysia, and other Southeast Asian countries. Authorities investigated the reports of foreign brides from all Asian countries in Taiwan but did not find any matches to the decedent. They only had one missing person report from Taiping that presented a possible match, but it was disregarded. The investigation soon reached a standstill, even after flyers about the case were distributed around Taiwan and central China. However, an investigator from Taichung named Wentong Zhang believed that his good friend, Jinli Chen, a missing woman from Taiping, was the unidentified woman found near the Chishuiqi Trail.
Before the discovery, on 4 August, Zhang received a call from Chen's daughter, Shuting Qiu, notifying him that her mother had disappeared and that she wanted to discuss it with him. From prior experiences with Chen and her ex-husband, Zhang recalled that Qiu's ex-lovers that he cheated on Chen with would often turn up at the family's factory to cause disorder. It was suspected that Chen's disappearance may be connected to these events or that Qiu was an informant for the police. While talking with Shuting, it was recalled that Chen had hired Huici Lai in 1999 when she was in need. Lai later became Qiu's mistress and was fired after Chen found out. Still, Qiu adamantly defended Lai and threatened to divide the factory's property since he co-owned the factory with Chen. A deal was later reached to keep any division of the property to a minimum, and Qiu had to pay monthly support to Chen and their children after they separated.
In 2001, Qiu had discreetly moved out of Chen's home and had stolen some of the machines from their factory. When Chen found his new home with his now-newlywed wife Lai and confronted him, he beat and humiliated her. Qiu started his factory in Taiping, obtaining half of Chen's customers and poaching several of her employees. Chen would steal the machines Qiu stole back, but this became an ongoing dispute with continuous fights between Qiu and Chen over the factories. Qiu was ceasing to send money to support Chen and his children, and Qiu found Chen easily tormented. These disputes would end once Chen had gone missing.
During her discussion with Zhang, Shuting recalled that she and her siblings did not see their mother when they came home from school on 2 August and that Chen was not seen after that day. Due to the ongoing disputes, Shuting suspected her father had lured Chen away and killed her. Zhang helped Shuting file a police report, but nothing was done, and the case of Chen was not connected to the body found near Chishuiqi Trail despite only a gap of 20 days. Chen was a native of Taiwan and had never left, making police disregard her since the unidentified woman was thought to be foreign. Due to police inaction, Zhang resorted to having informants infiltrate Qiu's factory to gather any information or clues. Qiu was alerted to this and started refusing these informants masquerading as potential hires. Qiu proceeded to move the location of his factory several times between 2003 and 2008, likely to try and hide from Zhang.
Between 2003 and 2008, a local lawyer would soon report an odd experience he had while hiking near Chishuiqi Trail with friends. After feeling a chill in the area, the lawyer felt spiritually disturbed and that a restless soul was in the area. He would inquire about it around Changhua for two weeks before meeting a police officer who worked in a division dealing with studying criminals. This officer told him about the discovery of the unidentified woman, and the lawyer proceeded to do activities akin to seances on television to contact her. Though these were unsuccessful, and her case again fell cold after the spectacle, the television show reignited Zhang's determination to prove Chen was the unidentified woman.
Finally, after several years of attempts, Zhang convinced his colleagues that the unidentified woman found on the Chishuiqi Trail was Chen. A secret investigation team was quickly established and set their sights on Qiu. However, Qiu could still spot their informants and refuse them from his factory. Zhang attempted to talk to Qiu's creditor about his debt collection, but this also needed to be more fruitless. However, the creditor told Zhang he felt uncomfortable in the factory and found it eerie. However, this may be due to Taiwanese society being much more superstitious, especially regarding stories with grievances. Zhang defaulted to a new plan to try to turn Qiu and Lai against each other.
In March 2009, Zhang partnered with a TV program and an electric company to enter Qiu's factory under the pretense that they were filming a show about electricity theft. During the investigation, stolen electricity was found in Qiu's factory, and he was given a fine of $700,000 in New Taiwanese dollars—the financial constraints, in tandem with Qiu receiving the fine, sparked quarrels between him and Lai. While Chen's disappearance had not come up once during the conflict, Lai would come to Shuting days later and shout at her that if she wanted to know where her mother was, she needed to ask her father. This would result in Shuting deliberately getting her father drunk whenever he visited to gain information, and soon he would mention burning Chen and beating her with a stick in his drunken state. However, Qiu would deny killing her whenever Shuting asked if he killed Chen. Unfortunately, admissions made while a suspect is drunk were invalid in Taiwanese court.
In late April 2009, Shuting told her father that she knew he had killed her mother and attempted to persuade him to turn himself in for the sake of her and her siblings. Shuting also told him that her siblings and their families also knew about it, so if he were to get rid of her, more people would be able to report his crimes. Qiu finally admitted he had killed Chen, though he claimed he could not turn himself in yet because he had unresolved business at his factory and wanted to wait until his new grandson was one year old before he would die by suicide. Shuting would compromise then to let her father finish his business, though her decision would quickly change when, ten days later, Lai and her children came to Shuting's home to harass her.
During the harassment, one of the children, Qinghong, hinted to Shuting that Chen was dead and that Qiu and Lai had killed her. Amidst the harassment, Shuting called Zhang and desperately requested that he send the Taiping police to her residence, as Qinghong had just hinted at Chen's death, but the police didn't arrive. Lai and her children only relented when Qiu came to the home. Shuting called Zhang again, and he confronted them on his own. He would arrive, accusing Qiu, Lai, and two of their factory workers of murdering Chen. Qiu had initially partially confessed to Chen's murder before Zhang came but quickly recanted when he began accusing them of the murder. At some point, the family and Zhang drove to the Taiping police station to settle the case.
Identification[]
Upon Qiu's arrival at the police station, three squads of detectives arrested both Lai's children and the two factory workers Zhang had accused of committing Chen's murder with Qiu and Lai. During interrogation, the two factory workers quickly admitted to aiding in Chen's murder and that she was the body that was found near Chishuiqi Trail. Qiu finally confessed to Chen's murder after Zhang assured him he would care for Shuting and his children, but he claimed that Lai was the mastermind. Lai was initially unwilling to cooperate, but after seeing the transcript of Qiu's interrogation, she became enraged and confessed.
According to the assessment of their confessions, the couple had decided to kill Chen after her supposed "harassment" for years. Qiu would first test out a powerful sleeping medicine he found in a magazine on Lai, and once he saw that it succeeded, he decided they would use it on Chen. On 2 August, their plan was implemented when Lai rented a minibus and invited the first factory worker. This factory worker would then ask the second factory worker after becoming intoxicated. Once both factory workers were supplied with alcohol, Qiu explained the plan to them to get rid of Chen. Qiu then went to the neighbor's house, where Chen had been playing cards, and persuaded her to come to Chiayi with him to discuss their relationship. Chen accepted and went with Qiu to Yijiang Bridge in Taiping.
Under the guise of having a drink with her, Qiu poured Chen some wine while they talked on the bridge. Once Chen was intoxicated, Qiu poured the sleeping medicine into her next glass of wine. Once she was unconscious, Qiu summoned Lai to bring the minibus. They loaded Chen into the minibus and headed to Qiu's factory to obtain the materials needed for her murder. They then traveled to a remote mountain in Taoyuan Village, where the two factory workers were instructed to strangle Chen with a towel. Due to the towel being too short for the workers to strangle her and Chen's body jerking out of instinct, Qiu grew angry and kicked her out of the minibus before ordering the workers to carry her back in and saying that they needed a different "execution" method.
After a few moments, Qiu, Lai, and the two workers began to beat Chen with sticks from the factory. When Chen was found to still be alive after the beating, Qiu ordered the factory workers to restrain Chen while he beat her on the head with one of the sticks. Chen continued to survive this, with the workers testifying that they saw tears from her eyes during the beating. As a last resort, Qiu withdrew a can of gasoline from the trunk of the minibus, put on gloves, doused Chen in gasoline, and used a lit cigarette to ignite her. The workers testified that they could hear Chen wailing and writhing for 2 minutes until she finally died. The four then took buckets and extinguished the fire to prevent suspicion from the villagers nearby. Qiu then poured caustic soda on Chen's face, chest, and fingers to hinder her identification. Chen was then placed in black plastic bags and taken to Chishuiqi Trail, where her body was dumped. All four would burn the murder weapons and their clothes when they returned home.
After the confessions, police re-examined the body of the unidentified woman from the Chishuiqi Trail to compare it to the testimonies of all four assailants. When the body lined up with what was described to have happened to Chen, the decedent's DNA was compared to Shuting's and her siblings and matched Chen's. Thus, in May 2009, the woman found near the Chishuiqi Trail was formally identified as 40-year-old Jinli Chen from Taiping.
During the trial of Qiu and Lai, it was revealed they had planned two different murder plots for Chen before the one that was carried out and had failed. Due to the confessions, it was quickly surmised that Qiu was the true mastermind behind the plot and that Lai and the factory workers were his accomplices. Qiu and Lai's trial ended with them being sentenced to life in prison, while the two factory workers were sentenced to 7 to 8 years in prison. After the trial, Chen was laid to rest again, and her case was formally closed.
Characteristics[]
- Illegal breast augmentations.
Accessories[]
- Golden stud earrings.
- Ring with the Buddhist swastika symbol and the letters "STRAK".
Sources[]
- Mo Yao Hua Yuan (Mandarin)