[1][3] His murder of dissident journalist Henry Liu in Daly City, California, United States, in 1984 has been described by the Financial Times as "the most prominent example of the Kuomintang's co-operation with gangsters in upholding its dictatorship".
[12] Chen was identified as "the Asian man who couldn't speak English" by neighborhood children after the shooting, as he was found feeding candy to their lost dog while he had been staking out Liu's home.
[15] Fearing that he would be betrayed, Chen had left the recorded confession with his associate, "Yellow Bird", in Houston, Texas, providing details and naming the officials behind the case, including Admiral Wang Hsi-ling, the head of Taiwan's Bureau of Military Intelligence.
[9][19] Jerome Cohen, then a professor of law at Harvard University, attended an administrative hearing for Chen and Wu on behalf of Liu's widow Helen Liu; he derided the trial as a "well-rehearsed performance", stating that the two read their statements from notebooks, and implied that their testimonies had been coached by the Taiwanese government, who sought to portray Wang as a rogue officer acting alone, and avoid other intelligence officials being implicated.
110) calling on Taipei to extradite Chen and Wu to the United States to stand trial there; the "nay" votes came from Bob Stump (R-AZ) and Howard C. Nielson (R-UT).
[5] In July 2000, he made news again after being arrested for illegal possession of firearms; the Cambodian police had moved against him after Taiwanese television stations broadcast images of him showing off his guns.
Chen claimed the guns had been purchased for self-defense in the aftermath of the 1997 coup by Hun Sen.[24][25] He lived quite luxuriously in Cambodia, alone in his 2,600 square metres (28,000 sq ft) villa, while his wife and children remained in Taiwan.
[1] Chen was hospitalised at St. Teresa's Hospital of Hong Kong in August 2007 due to the worsening of his pancreatic cancer; he remained there until his death in October of that same year.
[2][26] Fellow Liu killer Wu Tun, with whom Chen had remained friends, helped to organise his funeral; over three thousand people came to pay their respects.
[27][28] Among the mourners were major politicians from both the blue and green camps such as Wang Jin-pyng of the Kuomintang and Ker Chien-Ming of the Democratic Progressive Party, as well as various celebrities of whom the most prominent was popular singer Jay Chou; they suffered harsh criticism for their attendance, including a Taipei Times editorial, which characterised the politicians' presence as "revolting" and stated that Chou "should be ashamed, but we are not sure if he has the depth of character to feel it.