If it is true, Lin Yu-ru’s story may go a long way in explaining how her life deteriorated to the point that she decided to kill her husband. Does it also mean that one of Taiwan’s most infamous serial killers isn’t responsible for the death of her mother and mother-in-law?

The News Lens
Date: 2017/08/25
By: Edward White

On January 26, 2010, a 29-year-old woman sat in a police interrogation room in Taiwan and confessed to killing her mother, her mother-in-law and her husband. Their deaths had occurred over the previous two years but police had only become suspicious of Lin Yu-ru (林于如) when an insurance company alerted them that Lin had claimed hundreds of thousands of dollars in life insurance after each death.

When news of her arrest broke, Lin was swiftly branded as a “Black Widow” and set upon by Taiwan’s piranha-like tabloid media. She was immediately guilty in the eyes of the country’s prosecutors.

Three and a half years later, despite partially retracting her confession – she now says she only killed her husband – and the acknowledgement by a judge that her low IQ clearly met the threshold for intellectual disability, the Supreme Court handed down its final sentence and Lin, then 32, became the only woman on death row in Taiwan. Today, Lin is in a prison in Taichung, central Taiwan, awaiting her fate.    [FULL  STORY]