TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Claire Wang (王婉諭), the mother of the four-year-old girl who was decapitated 2016, on Tuesday (Dec. 24) asked Taiwan High Court judges to give the death penalty to the perpetrator in his retrial, rejecting the defense’s argument that the killer suffers from a mental illness that was not well managed by the country’s healthcare system, ETtoday reported.
On March 28, 2016, the victim, nicknamed “Little Light Bulb,” and her mother were on their way to an MRT station in Taipei to wait for the girl’s grandfather.
Wang Ching-yu (王景玉), 36, came from behind the victim, who was riding a trolley bike at the time, and struck her neck 23 times with a cleaver in a random attack, causing her head to separate from her body.
Prosecutors charged the suspect with murder and sought the death penalty. Shilin District Court judges adopted the defense’s argument that the suspect was suffering from a mental illness and sentenced him to life in prison, citing international human rights conventions that prohibit “cruel or inhumane punishment against defendants with disabilities or suffering from mental disorders.”
Seeking the death penalty for the killer of their child, the victim's parents appealed the sentence.
When the second trial began in June 2018, the killer apologized to the victim’s father, Liu Ta-ching (劉大經), who rejected the apology and spoke about the pain he had suffered from losing his daughter before asking Taiwan High Court judges to sentence the man to death. However, the court upheld the lower’s court’s life sentence.
The case then went to the Supreme Court, which returned the case to the High Court for retrial. During the retrial hearing on Tuesday, the victim’s mother broke down in tears, saying she recommended the death penalty for the killer on the grounds that he could repeat the heinous crime if given a second chance, as the country has failed to take care of mentally ill people like him, according to the report.