For 3 years Chen's family searched while her body drifted 300 kilometers at sea

Taiwan News
Date: 2020/08/05
By: George Liao, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — The unclaimed body of a Taiwanese teenager was finally identified after three years, during which time it drifted 300 kilometers from Taichung to waters around Turtle Island in Yilan County.

The identification was made possible by Hsu Yao-bin (許耀彬), a section chief at the First Precinct of the Keelung City Police Bureau. Hsu is renowned for his ability to identify unclaimed bodies.

When Hsu was reviewing the National Police Agency’s unclaimed body registry, a case caught his attention. It was a teenager found floating at sea 1.2 nautical miles south of Turtle Island, which the Coast Guard Administration responded to in June 2017, per CNA.

After crosschecking more than 100 files, Hsu came to believe that a 19-year-old woman surnamed Chen (陳) who went missing in Taichung might have been a match. Chen’s mother told police that on the day she went missing she received a phone call from her daughter’s boyfriend, who said Chen was depressed and intended to commit suicide by jumping into the sea.    [FULL  STORY]