The police in Taoyuan, Taiwan, have arrested Chen Li Sheng for killing his 29-year-old Vietnamese wife, Pham Thi Thanh Truc, and throwing her body into the sea 6 days ago.
The arrest of Sheng was made at 10 pm on December 26, 2 days after local residents found Truc’s body floating in the sea near Taoyuan, where Sheng and his wife had been living, Nguoi Lao Dong Newspaper reported.
According to the police, Truc got married to Sheng, a taxi driver, through a broker in 2003. The couple has 2 daughters, 5 and 6 years old. Sheng often picked quarrels with Truc and beat her since she could not give birth to a boy. Suffering from domestic violence, Truc had asked for protection from local authorities 3 times, but Sheng continued to abuse her. On December 22, the couple arrived at a local court for divorce procedures. Later on the same day, Sheng strangled Truc to death and then tied a piece of rock to her neck before throwing her body into the sea.
Calling for help
On December 27 afternoon Pham Thi Hoa, Truc’s sister, came to Nguoi Lao Dong Newspaper’s headquarter in Ho Chi Minh City to ask for help. A reporter then took Hoa to the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in HCMC for assistance.
Lin Chen Chou, an official at the office, said he had been informed of the tragedy and was working with the HCMC Foreign Affairs Department and the Vietnamese Economic and Cultural Office in Taiwan to handle the case.
The office asked Hoa to submit a report on the incident to the HCMC Department of Foreign Affairs, asking the agency for assistance in going to Taiwan to receive and repatriate Truc’s body. The office will grant a visa to the representative of Truc’s family right after the person obtains a passport, Lin said. In Truc’s case, the Taiwanese Committee for Compensation to Criminal Victims is likely to help in demanding compensation, Lin said. “We are very sorry,” he said.
An aborted dream
Hoa told Nguoi Lao Dong that in a conversation with her from Taiwan, Truc had said tearfully, “I accepted the marriage only because I wanted to help our family, but now, I’d rather die than live in such a terrible situation…”
Truc got married to Sheng with the hope that she could save money to build a house for her parents, who have been long living on a boat. But Sheng gave her family just VND5 million (US$238) as payment for the wedding held in HCMC, Hoa said. After Truc left Vietnam, her family incurred a debt of VND2 million which they had spent on her wedding ceremony, Hoa said.
When Truc arrived in Taiwan, she knew that her husband’s family was poor too and had to live in a rented house. During her 9 years in Taiwan, Truc returned to Vietnam twice and had no money to buy any gift for her family. In one of the two occasions, she had to borrow VND4 million from an acquaintance in Vietnam to buy a necklace as a present for her mother, Hoa said.
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