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Li
HSING-JU
Classification: Mass murderer
Characteristics:
Jealousy - Army captain
Number of victims: 10
Date of murders:
September 21, 1959
Date of birth: 1930
Victims profile:
Men, women and children
Method of murder:
Shooting (two rifles)
Location: Nantou
City, Taiwan
Status:
Committed
suicide by shooting himself in the head the same day
The Nantou shooting was a mass murder that
occurred in Nantou City, Taiwan on September 21, 1959, when
29-year-old army captain Li Hsing-ju killed ten people and wounded
four others, before committing suicide.
Background
Li had fallen in love with 19-year-old Lu Mu-sheng,
who rejected his advances and became engaged with her neighbour Yu
Chuang Sheng, while he was stationed on the Quemoy islands. When Li
returned home Lu introduced him to another girl, proposing that he
should marry her instead.
Lu Mu-sheng and Yu Chuang Sheng were about to get
married on the day of the shooting.
Shooting
In the early hours of September 21, at
approximately 2 a.m., Li broke into the house of Lu Mu-sheng and her
family, carrying with him two rifles. He fatally shot Lu's father, her
10-year-old sister, her two brothers, aged 14 and 6 years, as well as
her 30-year-old fiance with a semi-automatic rifle, and then dragged
her outside and critically wounded her with shots to the chest and
leg.
Li also fired at two neighbours who came to
investigate, killing one and wounding the other, and subsequently
entered a second-storey apartment 50 yards away, where the girl, Miss
Lu had introduced him to, lived together with her family. There he
killed the girl's parents, her brother, and one of her sisters, and
wounded herself and another sister of hers. When police arrived at the
scene and asked him to surrender, Li committed suicide by shooting
himself in the head.
Wikipedia.org
Jealous Army Captain Massacres 10
The Straits Times
September 22, 1959
A jealous Nationalist Army Captain armed with two
rifles shot his way through two houses yesterday, killing 10 relatives
and friends of the girl who spurned his love.
Captain Li Hsing-Ju, 29, a veteran of Quemoy, then
shot himself in the head.
His victims included the girl's fiance whom she was
to have married today.
The Captain dragged the girl who rejected his love,
Miss Lu Mu-Sheng, 19, from her house and shot her in the chest an leg.
Doctors described he condition as critical.
Li killed four members of her family and four
relatives of a girl whom Miss Lu wanted him to marry.
The 10th victim was a neighbour.
He seriously wounded four people.
Nationalist military officials privately expressed
serious alarm over the massacre because of its possible affect on the
morale of troops and civilians.
Became engaged
Miss Lu became engaged to a neighbour after the
Captain, who had meet her while she was in High School, left Formosa
to serve on the Quemoy Islands.
Military officials are also concerned over
soldier-civilian relations because of the large number of troops in
Formosa. Captain Li broke into Miss Lu's house in Nantou, central
Formosa, at 2a.m. while the family slept on the night before the
scheduled wedding.
He carried, fully loaded, rifles in each hand.
One by one, emptying first a semiautomatic-rifle,
he killed the girl's father, her 14-year-old brother, her 10-year-old
sister, her six-year-old brother, and her fiance, Yu Chuan Sheng, 30.
Dragged girl
He dragged the girl outside, critically wounding
her, and the shot and killed a neighbour and wounded another who came
to investigate.
The Captain then climbed into a nearby
second-storey apartment in which lived the family of a girl Miss Lu
had introduced him to for the purpose of matrimony.
There he killed the mother, father and a teenaged
son and daughter and wounded two other daughters, including his
potential wife.
Police surrounded the second death house and
shouted they would throw tear gas grenades if the Captain did not come
out with his hands in the air. He then shot himself.
