In this July 1993 file photo, investigators examine the scene in Hwaseong, south of Seoul, where a man had raped and brutally killed a woman
Credit: Yonhap News Agency
A man who has confessed to being one of South Korea’s most prolific serial killers has told a court in the city of Suwon that he was surprised he had not been not caught earlier.
Lee Chun-jae, 57, was appearing in court on Monday for the retrial of a man who was wrongly convicted of one of Lee’s killings, serving 20 years in prison for the rape and murder of a 13-year-old girl in 1988.
The man, Yoon Sung-yeo, was released in 2008 but is appealing to have his conviction quashed. He alleges — and police have admitted — that he was coerced into making a false confession in the death of the girl as police struggled to identify the perpetrator of a series of killings attributed to "the Hwaseong Strangler."
Lee told the court that he murdered 14 women and girls around the city of Hwaseong between 1986 and 1991, Yonhap News reported. All the victims were discovered bound, gagged, raped and, in most cases, strangled with an item of their own clothing, usually their underwear. His first victim was 71 years old and two other victims were 14.
Police in South Korea have apologised for the botched investigation
Credit: Hancook Ilbo
The killings led to the largest man-hunt in South Korean criminal history, with more than 21,000 potential suspects interviewed and investigators putting in more than 2 million hours on the case.
The South Korean director of ‘Parasite’ Bong Joon-Ho was added to a government list of ‘subversive artists’ for his film on the failed investigation, ‘Memories of Murder’ (2003).
Mr Yoon repeatedly protested his innocence but was only granted a retrial after new DNA evidence proved in 2019 that he was not the perpetrator. He was convicted largely on the strength of a confession that he insists was coerced and forensic tests of hairs gave a 40 per cent match to his DNA.
After being re-tested, the DNA instead linked Lee, who was already in prison after being convicted of murdering his sister-in-law, with the girl’s death.
Lee had been sentenced to death in May 1994 for killing his 18-year-old relative, but that sentence was reduced by a higher court to a life sentence in 1995 and he became eligible to apply for parole in 2015.
And although he has admitted the earlier charges, Lee cannot be tried for any of the crimes as the statute of limitations has already expired.
Asked how he had managed to evade suspicion in the original investigation, Lee told the court: “I still do not understand”.
“Crimes were happening around me and I did not try hard to hide things, so I thought that I would get caught easily”, he said. “There were hundreds of police officers. I bumped into detectives all the time, but they always only asked me about the people around me”.
Lee was detained at one point, but only for not having his identity card on him and he was released without a thorough investigation.
Asked about his motives, Lee said: “I do not know exactly why I lived such a life at that time. I didn’t plan and prepare to commit the crimes, I just acted depending on the situation”.
Lee also apologised in the court to Mr Yoon, his victims and the dozens of local men who were investigated by the police as potential suspects. Media reports claim that at least four people committed suicide after coming under suspicion.
“I heard that many people were investigated and suffered wrongly”, Lee said. “I would like to apologise to all those people.
“I came to testify and describe the crimes in the hope that [the victims and their families] can find some comfort when the truth is revealed. I will live my life repenting”.
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