Police probe Canadian’s death, dismemberment

UNDERWORLD LINKS? As authorities had raided the man’s residence in May and seized illegal drugs, they did not rule out a dispute with gangsters as a motive

By Jason Pan / Staff reporter





Police yesterday identified the headless and dismembered corpse found in a riverside park in New Taipei City’s Yonghe District (永和) as that of a Canadian English-language teacher.

The torso was found on a sandbar on the Yonghe side of the Sindian River (新店溪), Yonghe Police Precinct criminal investigation deputy chief Weng Chi-yuan (翁啟元) said.

Two friends of the victim identified him as a 43-year-old Canadian named Ryan who had lived in Taiwan for about 10 years, police said.

Knife wounds are seen on the nose of a dog named Lulu at a police station in New Taipei City yesterday. Photo: Chen Yi-yun, Taipei Times

The friends told police that they went to Ryan’s apartment in Yonghe to look for him after being unable to contact him for several days.

They found his dog, Lulu, outside the apartment with knife wounds and went to the nearby riverside park to look for him, as he often walked his dog there.

Lulu led them to a corpse clothed in items they knew to be Ryan’s, and the two were able to make a definitive identification after the head was found, police said.

Police searched the area after receiving a report at about 1:30pm, and by the evening had recovered the head and some body parts, but two limbs remained missing, Weng said.

Investigators last night continued to look for the missing limbs and began to check footage from surveillance cameras, Weng said, adding that they also took statements from the two friends, a man surnamed Hsu (許) and another Canadian, whose name was not released.

Media reports said that Ryan had taught English at cram schools and as a private tutor, and was married to a Taiwanese woman surnamed Yen (顏), who in October last year drowned after she fell into the ocean off Yilan County.

Police said they would search Ryan’s residence and speak to his neighbors, as he was allegedly involved in a nightclub narcotics case that in May saw his apartment raided and 103 pouches of dried cannabis seized.

Police said they are treating the case as a murder and are looking for suspects, who might include gangsters engaged in the illegal drug trade.