An excerpt from "Because the judge said so"

An excerpt from "Because the judge said so" .pdf

                                      Edited by Tiffany Baron & Hannah Tien

Lu Cheng, a 9-year-old boy, was kidnapped in City of Hsinchu on his way home from a cram school in the early evening on November 21, 1987. Lu’s whereabouts remain unknown as of today. Three days after Lu was kidnapped, Ko Hung Yu-lan, a female insurance agent in Mioli area, was reported missing. Her beheaded body and dismembered limbs were found on December 12, 1987.

These two cases were consolidated and tried in 1989. Chiou Ho-shun and 11 codefendants were convicted for committing these two heinous crimes, and Chiou, identified as the principal, was sentenced to the death penalty. A marathon of appeals and retrials has been ongoing ever since. On May 12, 2011, the Taiwanese High Court retried Chiou’s case for the eleventh time. Chiou was once again convicted and sentenced to death. In July, Chiou’s attorneys took the case to the Supreme Court.  The Court affirmed the decision of the court below and Chiou is now on death row.