Vietnamese woman and Taiwanese man plummet to their deaths in apparent murder-suicide

TAIPEI (Taiwan News, Nov 21,2017) — In what appears to be a murder-suicide, the body of a Vietnamese woman was discovered on a sidewalk with the body of her Taiwanese boyfriend lying on a nearby car this morning (Nov. 20) in front of an apartment in Nantou County’s Caotun Township, reported TVBS.

Police received a report that a man and woman had both fallen from a high-rise apartment at 6 a.m., with the woman landing on the sidewalk and the man impacting on a parked car.  When police arrived on the scene, they discovered that the two had fallen from the 11th floor of an apartment they rented together, with the woman having a 10-cm-long gash in her neck, while the man had a smaller laceration to his neck, about 2 to 3 cm in length.

According to the mother of the man, the woman, surnamed Bui (裴) had arrived to Taiwan on a marriage visa with another Taiwanese man, who she later divorced. She then started dating the 32-year-old Taiwanese man surnamed Hsu (許), and the two had been a couple for about a year before today’s tragic incident.

When police entered the apartment, they found a watermelon knife on the bed, which was covered in blood. When they reviewed CCTV footage of the moment they fell, Bui can be seen first hitting the sidewalk, followed shortly after by Hsu, who violently crashed onto a parked car, leaving a deep indentation where he landed.

After an initial investigation, police believe that Hsu first cut Bui’s throat before tossing her out the window. Next, they believe Hsu cut his own throat and then leaped out of the window as well to commit suicide.

The circumstances and reasons for the deaths of the two are still under investigation by police.