YAMANASHI (TR) – A 38-year-old Taiwanese woman found dead with stab wounds at a Fujikawaguchiko resort hotel had reportedly told a Taiwan magazine she feared her husband was plotting to kill her for a massive life insurance payout — and her alleged killer may have been his ex-lover, reports News Post Seven (Oct. 28).
Police in the town of Fujikawaguchiko are investigating the death of Jin Yunrong, 38, a Taiwanese national whose body was discovered with stab wounds to the neck inside her hotel room on October 19, just two days after she arrived in Japan as part of a group tour.
A hotel employee found Jin bleeding from a stab wound to the neck after she failed to appear at a scheduled assembly time, according to police. Fellow tour participant Yang Ming-han, 27, also Taiwanese, was found inside Jin’s room holding a kitchen knife and was subsequently arrested on suspicion of violating Japan’s Swords and Firearms Control Law.
Police are also investigating Yang’s possible involvement in Jin’s death, according to a reporter from a major national newspaper.
Yang has told investigators she visited Jin’s room intending to talk with her. The kitchen knife she was carrying is believed to have been purchased at a commercial facility outside Yamanashi Prefecture, police said.
Dark side
What appeared on the surface to be a shocking incident between strangers on a tour has taken on a far darker dimension. Taiwan’s Mirror Weekly magazine has revealed that Jin contacted the publication before her death, confiding that she feared she might not survive until the end of the year.
According to the magazine’s reporting, cited by a journalist with expertise in overseas affairs, Jin had married her company’s president — a man nine years her junior — in July of this year.
The husband then immediately took out a large life insurance policy on her. He is also alleged to have told her, “Do you want to lose your hands and feet? You could get a lot of money.” Jin reportedly grew increasingly convinced her husband was plotting an insurance murder, prompting her desperate appeal to the magazine.
Romantic relationship
Investigators have since uncovered a possible link between Jin’s husband and the suspect. Local police found evidence suggesting Yang and Jin’s husband may have been in a romantic relationship in the past, the journalist said. Further, it was Jin’s husband who arranged the Japan trip. Jin’s husband has since been arrested, according to media reports from Taiwan.
A social media account believed to belong to Jin contained a post, written in Traditional Chinese, that read: “Help — where am I supposed to go in Tokyo? I don’t know my way around. Looks like I’ll just be cooped up in the hotel writing documents.” The post now reads as a haunting coda: within days of writing it, she was dead.
Investigations are ongoing in both Japan and Taiwan.
