Chen Jui-chin graduated from junior high school and thereafter from the horticulture department of the
National Chiayi University. He volunteered to be a soldier in the
Air Force, from where he obtained the rank of officer and eventually a captain. After the
CPC Corporation started laying off employees, where Chen worked, he instead quit and started searching for work as an oil allocation engineer. He was unable to find any, and as he reproached the idea of retiring, he applied for a job at the Newport Township Office Finance Section. However, because of his gambling habits, he owned money to loan sharks, and eventually resorted to killing his insured relatives so he could pay off the debts. Chen married his first wife, Tseng Pi-hsia, in 1974. They had a son and two daughters together. On
New Year's in 1985, Tseng accidentally slipped in the bathroom and suffered a concussion. Instead of helping his wife, Chen dragged her off the bed and slammed her head into the ground several times, killing Tseng. He lied by claiming that she had fallen off the bed and died of intracranial haemorrhage, swindling $2.35 million NT in insurance money. Only six months after her death, Chen remarried to an elementary school teacher named Wang Shu-ying. Wang had a son from a previous marriage, whom Chen adopted. In 1988, Chen Jui-chin was heavily indebted and desperate for money. In order to obtain a fraudulent compensation of $4.6 million NT, he pretended to discipline his 15-year-old adopted son, slapping him so hard that the child fell and hit his head on the concrete wall. The child died as a result of the injury, with Chen claiming that it was an accident. In 1995, facing another financial crisis, Chen targeted his own 15-year-old son. He took him to a heavy ornamental stone and hit the boy on the back of the head, cracking his skull. Chen lied about his son having died in a car accident, and fraudulently received $4.72 million NT. In 1996, Chen learned that his second wife, Wang Shu-ying, had been coveting insurance claims and real estate for teachers. Under the pretence of going on a trip, the two drove to
Xingang. Suddenly, Chen stopped the car, pulled out a wooden stick from under the driver's seat and beat his wife to death. After the murder, Chen dumped her body on Shixian Road in
Chiayi, creating the illusion of a car accident. Since he had blood on his clothes, Chen was reluctant about catching a taxi back home. In this case, not only did he obtain Wang's insurance claims of $11.37 million NT, but also continued to receive her pension. Chen's late wife often visited a clothing store owned by a woman named Yan Liqin, a widow with two children. After more than a month from his wife's death, Chen took the initiative to "entangle" himself around the clothing store. After strenuous pursuit, Yan was moved, and they married in 1997. Chen's vicious behaviour was unchanged, however, as he tried to fraudulently clear his debts the following year. Yan's 16-year-old son was having a headache, so Chen fed him sleeping pills, claiming that they were painkillers. While the son was sleeping, Chen transported him to the stairs, where he dropped him on his head, creating the illusion of an accidental death. He applied for an insurance claim of $15.5 million NT, but the insurance company, which had noticed that multiple relatives had died of suspicious injuries relating to head trauma, paid only $250,000. Since Yan also believed that her son had been murdered, she continued to investigate for possible evidence to prove it. Perplexingly, Chen tried to deceive his wife by putting on a condom on the boy's genitalia and explaining that he had died while having sex. Yan remained with him for a while, but as their relationship worsened, she divorced him. During the divorce, she was intimidated by Chen to pay a $1.2 million NT "breakup fee", but was otherwise left unharmed. In 2000, many insurance companies discovered that the circumstances surrounding the deaths of Chen's relatives, especially his three sons, who all received "head injuries" and died from
cerebral oedema, were suspicious, as all of them had been insured for millions of NT. After holding discussions with representatives of various companies, they unanimously agreed to prevent Chen Jui-chin from insuring people and reported this to the police. The then-legislator,
Chen Chao-jung, was informed of this ordeal, and soon held a press conference expressing his doubts about the suspect. Chao-jung himself would later personally go and interrogate Chen, who, out of fear, hid under the table and refused to come out. The next day, he angrily announced before the media that he would "retain the right to pursue the lawsuit against the false accusations of legislators." Following his arrest, Chen Jui-chin confessed, in order, to killing Chen Yi-ling, Tseng Pi-hsia, his three children, and Wang Shu-ying, but claimed that he had nothing to do with the disappearances of his other female friends. After his death sentence was upheld, he retracted his confession and offered to help the police in locating the missing women, but his bluff was called out, as the investigators understood that he was just trying to weasel out of his execution. Chen Jui-chin was indicted by the Nantou District Prosecutors' Office in July 2003 on charges of rape and murder for the death of Chen Yi-ling. The prosecution sought the death penalty. == Trial, appeal and execution ==