A 4-year-old girl was decapitated by a knife-wielding man in an
apparent random attack outside a metro station in Taipei, Taiwan on
Monday, March 28.
The girl's mother, Ms Claire Wang has touched many Taiwanese with her
composure and loving message to her slain child, even as public outrage
over the shocking incident threatens to boil over.
"Fortunately, I had held you tightly and
told you I loved you every
day," the 36-year-old posted on her Facebook account on Tuesday March
29, the day after the tragedy, together with a photo of her
holding her daughter in her arms and her husband by their side.
According to Central News Agency, she gave the media permission to use
the photos
Ms Wang appeared
before dozens of TV cameras and journalists just
hours after witnessing the killing of her child on Monday morning on a
Taipei street. Although visibly traumatized and tearful, she spoke
coherently about
the incident and how she tried but failed to protect her child, who is
identified in the media only by her surname Liu and family nickname of
Little Light Bulb.
The suspect, 33-year-old Wang Ching-yu, grabbed the child from behind
and decapitated her with a cleaver as she was riding a bicycle near Ms
Wang.
He has a criminal record for drug offences and had undergone
psychiatric treatment. He was beaten up by an angry mob on Tuesday while
being transferred from a Taipei police station to the prosecutor's
office for questioning.
Amid widespread calls for the killer to be executed immediately
and for a mandatory death penalty for people convicted of killing
children, Ms Wang has been one of the few to call for calm and reason at the same time she mourned her loss.
"I believe the suspects in these kinds of random killings lose their
minds at that moment," Ms Wang told TV reporters at the police station
on Monday.
"This is not a problem that can be solved by passing a law," she
said. "I hope we can address the problem from its root, from the
perspective of family and education, so that there will no longer be
people like him (the perpetrator) in our society."
Ms Wang and her husband David Liu, 44 graduated from the
University of Southern California, CNA reported. Mr Liu works in the
high-tech sector, while Ms Wang is a stay-at-home mum. They have three
other children, a nine-year-old girl and two-year-old twins.
Ms Wang, who says she is a free-thinker, seemed determined to turn
the tragedy of her daughter’s death into a lesson for the greater good.
"After the incident, many friends advised me to close my blog and
Facebook page, but I really hope that her death can leave something
behind, stir up some discussion, remind people of the importance of
love, and call attention to the many issues in society," Ms Wang told
reporters outside the funeral home on Tuesday.
"Please
keep trusting people because society is still beautiful." she wrote on
her Facebook page. "Please give your dearest family members a hug. That
would be the most comforting and caring thing you could do for us."
"This morning, Little Light Bulb got up earlier than usual and
told me happily that she was early enough to say 'bye bye' to her older
sister as she left for school," Ms Wang wrote of the girl's last day
alive in a widely circulated essay.
Later, Ms Wang wrote, the little girl sat on the bed as she nibbled on a fruit and looked out of the window. Asked what she was looking at, the girl told her mother: "I'm admiring the scenery and eating fruit.
"It's so beautiful. The world is so beautiful."
"Maybe it was her final retrospection of the world," wrote Ms Wang.
On Wednesday, March 30, the grieving mother announced, with her husband by her
side, that the public was welcomed to visit her daughter's wake, but
asked that mourners come "without hatred in your heart".
"I have never believed that hatred and recrimination can solve
problems," Ms Wang said in a message printed on a card placed at the
entrance to the wake.
"That's why we have always educated her (Little Light Bulb) in a
loving, gentle way....She has accomplished her mission in this beautiful
world and left without a care. I hope she can go on her way surrounded
by love."
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