Police help father find the unclaimed body of his daughter after three years

警方協助一名父親在三年後找到他女兒的無名屍

TAIPEI (Taiwan News)—The unclaimed body of a woman who committed suicide by jumping onto railway tracks in northern Taiwan three years ago finally finds her way home after police found her biological father, who wished to take her home and bury her properly, according a CNA report on Sunday.

Hsu Yao-bin (許耀彬), a section chief of the First Precinct, Keelung City Police Bureau, was commissioned to investigate the case of an unidentified body documented at the end of March, 2015, the report said.

Hsu embarked on the mission by first accessing information in National Police Agency’s unidentified bodies system, according to the report. After looking into more than a thousand items of information, Hsu found that the characteristics of the unidentified body he was investigating closely matched those of a missing woman surnamed Shen, who was born in 1982 and lived in Keelung City, according to the report.

Shen, who was an adopted daughter, jumped onto the railway tracks from a platform at TRA Nuannuan Station in 2015, and as she carried no identity documents with her at the time, police launched an investigation to identify the unclaimed body but to no avail, the report said. The unclaimed body was finally buried in the “nameless grave section” of a public cemetery in Keelung with the mark “A092,” according to the news outlet. Shen’s adoptive mother and her family moved to Taichung after reported her adopted daughter missing in July, 2015.

When she turned one month old, Shen was adopted by her adoptive mother who lived in Shen’s neighborhood. Shen’s biological father surnamed Chen often saw his daughter after giving her up for adoption but never identified himself to her, the report said.

It was said that Shen had a very good relationship with her adoptive father surnamed Shen, so when her adoptive father died three years ago, she became depressed and didn’t like to talk to her classmates, the report said.

Chen knew his daughter had gone missing from hearsay of his neighbors, the report added.

Section chief Hsu said that after tireless efforts, police finally found Chen, Shen’s biological father, on May 29 this year and presented him the surveillance video that captured Shen’s suicide, according to the report. When Chen saw the video, he immediately recognized his daughter in the video, the outlet reported, adding that for many nights before police contacted him, Chen couldn’t sleep because he kept thinking about his daughter.

After the “A092” nameless female was identified, Hsu went to look for her grave in the afternoon of June 20, but for a moment he couldn’t find her tomb as there was grass outgrowth all over the place, according to the report. Later Hsu read in silence, “Miss Shen, I am a policeman. I am going to take your father and mother here, and bring you home, please tell me where you are.” Immediately after making the request, Hsu found Shen’s tombstone hidden behind thick weeds, the report said.

When Chen and his family visited the grave the next day, many family members, whose cheeks streaming with tears, thanked police repeatedly. Chen said he wanted to change his daughter’s family name back to Chen and bury her properly to make up for the regret that he had never taken care of his daughter in the past 30 plus years.