A young girl in Taiwan was beheaded in broad daylight on Monday morning (March 28), according to several online news reports.
The 4-year-old was reportedly decapitated right before her mother’s eyes at about 11am but could not be saved in time.
A 33-year-old man, surnamed Wang, has been arrested by the police according to South China Morning Post (SCMP). He is said to be ‘mentally unstable’ and has a record of drug-related crimes.
The suspect had cut off the girl’s head in Neihu, eastern Taipei, using a cleaver.
Shanghaiist reported that he had bought the cleaver from a shop this morning and wandered around Xihu Metro Station after that.
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Posted by 三立新聞 on Monday, March 28, 2016
It was there that he spotted the little girl who was riding her mini scooter, according to Apple Daily.
SCMP reported that the girl’s mother had thought Wang was going to help her child “ride up a hill” but his actions proved otherwise as he started stabbing her several times with the cleaver.
“The first thing I did was grab hold of the man, but I wasn’t able to stop him. All I could do was hold him and stop him from escaping, while calling for help,” said the mother, who witnessed the entire scene.
She was reportedly “just one metre” away from her daughter.
Eye-witnesses had tackled the suspect to the ground before police arrived, but it was too late to save the little girl.
Known affectionately to her family as ‘Little Lantern’, the child had wanted to pick up her siblings, her mother told reporters.
According to SCMP, surveillance camera footage retrieved by local media from outside a restaurant showed the suspect pacing back and forth on the street looking agitated before the incident happened.
Taiwanese television operator Eastern Broadcasting quoted the suspect’s father as saying that his only son had previously been treated in hospital for his unstable mental state but his health condition was not registered by the government.
The suspect is reportedly unemployed and relies on his parents’ income.
In a TV interview, the little girl’s mother said she does not think that any kind of law will be able to solve the problem of keeping “dangerous people from the street”.
Instead, she said: “I hope our children and grandchildren will never see this happen ever again.”
ssandrea@sph.com.sg
