Tag: murder

Via a reader tip comes news that quite possibly the most infamous criminal in USFK history has passed away at age 50 in West Virginia:

Kenneth Lee “Kennet” Markle, III, 50, of Keyser, WV, died Tuesday, February 14, 2023 in Keyser.

Born on June 7, 1972 in Wurzburg, Germany, he was a son of Kenneth L. Markle, Jr. and Helen M. “Mickey” (Hickey) Markle, of Keyser. He was preceded in death by an infant brother, Jarrod Markle and his grandparents, Kenneth L. Markle, Sr., Wanda P. Markle and John and Edith Hickey.

Kennet was a 1990 graduate of Keyser High School and was employed as a project manager in the cellular communications industry. He was an avid Pittsburgh Steelers fan.

Tribute Archive

For those that don’t know who Kenneth Markle is, I recommend reading my below prior posting about him:

GI Flashbacks: The 1992 Private Kenneth Markle Murder Case

I also recommend reading the below prior posting where Markle’s alleged ex-girlfriends describe what he is like in the comments section:

Convicted USFK Murderer Speaks Out

I have actually met Markle before when he was still being held in the foreigner prison down in Cheonan. He was the person that used to pick up the mail from people that would go and check up on the prisoners there. He was actually very polite when I interacted with him. However, since his release from Korean prison in 2006 he went on to continue a life of crime in West Virginia:

Two Mineral County men were arrested Monday when they were served arrest warrants by Keyser Police at two locations.

Kenneth Lee Markle, 44, of Keyser, was charged with 24 counts of nighttime burglary and 74 counts of unauthorized use of a debit card, police said.

Markle was arrested at a North Water Street residence late Monday and granted pre-trial release after posting $15,000 bond, police said. 

Cumberland Times-News

Markle actually contacted me a few years after he got out claiming his innocence and that if I read the court transcripts I would understand he was not a murderer. I offered to post the complete transcripts on the ROK Drop and he never sent them to me. His side of the story is that he hit the victim in the head with a coke bottle after she attacked him and was alive when left the room. He claims someone else killed her and violated her body. He told himself that bogus story for so long he probably actually believed it after a while.

Judging by this collage of mugshots that ROK Drop commenter Chickenhead has put together, I would not be surprised that besides being a thief that Markle was a meth-head as well:

This officially closes the chapter on Kenneth Markle and hopefully those impacted by his crimes get some solace that he will not be able to victimize anyone else ever again.

This missing child and murder case is totally bizarre and it is only a matter of time before this is turned into a movie:

A woman was given a suspended prison term in a retrial on Thursday in connection with the mysterious disappearance and deaths of two 3-year-old girls.

Reversing an earlier prison term of eight years, the appellate division of the Daegu District Court sentenced the 50-year-old woman, surnamed Seok, to two years in prison, suspended for three years.

The court acquitted Seok of charges that she had switched her 3-year-old daughter with her granddaughter of the same age years ago in the southeastern city of Gumi. 

The case first surfaced in 2021 when the mummified remains of a 3-year-old girl was found at the former home of Seok’s daughter, surnamed Kim. The girl is suspected to have died from starvation up to six months earlier.

However, it was only later found through DNA tests that Kim is not the mother of the girl, but her older sister. The child’s supposed grandmother was in fact the biological mother.

Based on the DNA results, prosecutors added child abduction and switching charges against Seok by alleging that the two women gave birth around the same time and that their babies were switched at birth. 

Prosecutors alleged that Seok had unloaded her newborn onto her eldest daughter to raise with her then husband. Kim had raised her younger sister by thinking that she was her daughter.

Seok, however, said she had not given birth to another child, insisting the DNA results are false. The whereabouts of the missing child remain unclear.

In previous rulings, the district and appeals courts had acknowledged the biological relationship between Seok and the dead girl, convicting her of switching the babies. 

The Supreme Court, however, struck down the verdict, saying the DNA test results cannot stand as evidence for Seok’s alleged switching of the babies. 

On Thursday, the appellate court sided with the top court, acquitting Seok of switching babies and only convicting her of attempting to dispose of the body.

Yonhap

What I don’t get is why Seok would switch the babies around the time of birth to just likely kill her granddaughter after the switch? If she was going to kill a baby why didn’t she just get an abortion? Also how did the daughter Kim not notice she had a different baby? The daughter was sentenced to 20 years in jail for killing the baby when she reached age 3 that uncovered this whole sorted affair.

This is pretty atrocious police work and makes you wonder if even today how well these criminals with ankle monitors are being tracked:

A Seoul court on Wednesday ordered the state to pay more than 200 million won (US$162,500) in compensation to family members of a woman killed after an attempted rape by a man wearing an ankle monitor for sexual crimes.

In 2012, the woman in her 30s was murdered by Seo Jin-hwan, who broke into her house in Seoul’s Gwangjin district in an attempt to rape her. It was only later found out by police that Seo had committed a similar crime just 13 days earlier and that he was wearing an electronic ankle monitor at the time.

The family then filed a compensation suit against the state, claiming Seo’s crime could have been prevented if police had properly managed DNA evidence found from the previous crime scene and if his ankle bracelet had been properly monitored.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

This must have been terrifying to find in her boyfriend’s closet:

A man in his 30s was arrested Sunday for murdering and hiding the body of a taxi driver in his 60s in a closet at his home in Paju, Gyeonggi.  
   
“There is a dead body in my boyfriend’s closet at an apartment in Paju,” a caller reported to the 112 emergency hotline around 11:22 a.m. on Sunday.  
   
Earlier that day, the taxi driver’s son called the police at around 3:30 a.m. saying that his father “has been missing for six days” and that he “talked to him on KakaoTalk but it feels like talking to a different person.” 

The police went to the apartment in Paju after the call was made and confirmed that the dead body was the taxi driver.  
   
According to the Ilsan Dongbu Police Precinct, the man was involved in a car crash with the taxi driver while drunk driving at around 11 p.m. on Dec. 20. 

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link.

This horrible woman will hopefully face justice in New Zealand for allegedly killing her two kids:

A 42-year-old woman, who is suspected of killing her two children, has been extradited to New Zealand. 

According to the Ministry of Justice, Tuesday, the woman, surnamed Lee, is a New Zealand citizen of Korean descent and was handed over along with evidence to the New Zealand authorities the previous day at Incheon International Airport.

The woman came into the spotlight in August after a family in Auckland found the bodies of a 10-year-old girl and a seven-year-old boy in two suitcases they purchased with other “abandoned goods” at an online auction. Police believe that the bodies had been kept there for several years.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

Moments ago, Jeon Joo-hwan, the stalker suspected of murdering a woman in a Seoul subway station appeared outside Namdaemun Police Station, said he "was so sorry" and "did something really crazy". pic.twitter.com/hETOQAKgoh

— Raphael Rashid (@koryodynasty) September 20, 2022

Man in Seoul follows a female subway attendant who was patrolling the ladies' toilet at Sindang Station, stabs her to death. https://t.co/FSKQgPWGhp

— Raphael Rashid (@koryodynasty) September 15, 2022

This is a bizarre murder case:

A woman believed to be the mother of two children whose bodies were found in suitcases in New Zealand last month was apprehended in South Korea on Thursday, police said.

The woman, known as a South Korean-born New Zealand citizen in her 40s, was arrested at an apartment in Ulsan, 307 kilometers southeast of Seoul, the National Police Agency said.

Local police had tracked down the woman at the request of New Zealand police after the remains of the two children believed to have been killed in 2018 at ages 7 and 10, respectively, were found on Aug. 11 in suitcases bought by a resident of Auckland, New Zealand, at an auction.

New Zealand police then launched a manhunt after presuming the woman as the mother of the two children and the murder suspect.

The woman born in South Korea is said to have acquired New Zealand nationality after her immigration, and her husband is reported to have died of a disease there.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but if this woman killed her two kids the police may want to investigate the circumstances around her husband’s death as well.

I can understand why this guy has a grudge against the Unification Church, but it in no way justifies murdering Shinzo Abe:

The mother of the man suspected of murdering former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe donated more than 100 million yen ($720,000) to the Unification Church, a relative said.

The contributions to the religious group included 50 million yen she received from a life insurance policy taken on her husband, as well as proceeds from property sales, the relative told The Asahi Shimbun.

She was declared bankrupt in 2002.

Her son, Tetsuya Yamagami, 41, has been sent to prosecutors on suspicion of murdering Abe, 67, who was gunned down on July 8 while giving an election campaign speech in Nara.

Asahi.com

You can read more at the link.

This is an extremely bizarre murder in Seoul:

 A 41-year-old man was sentenced to 25 years in prison Thursday for brutally killing one of his employees by inserting a 70-centimeter rod into the victim’s rectum.

The Seoul Western District Court found the man, only identified by his surname Han, guilty of murdering the employee at a children’s gym in Seoul with the plastic stick, which ruptured his organs and caused his death in December of last year.

“Severe punishment is inevitable as his crime is bizarre and brutal, and he did not have any kind of respect for the victim,” the court said in the ruling.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.