Tag: murder

This is the most bizarre North Korean defector story I have read. This could be dramatized into a movie plot:

South Korea deported two North Koreans back to the communist nation after learning that they killed 16 fellow crew members on their fishing boat and fled to the South, the unification ministry said Thursday.

The two in their 20s were sent back to the North at around 3:10 p.m. through the truce village of Panmunjom, five days after they were captured near the Northern Limit Line sea border in the East Sea on Saturday, according to the ministry.

It marks the South’s first deportation of North Koreans through Panmunjom.

“We decided to deport them after determining that accepting them to our society could pose a threat to the lives and safety of our people and that such criminals cannot be recognized as refugees under international law,” Lee Sang-min, the ministry’s spokesperson, said at a press briefing.

The government also plans to send back the fishing boat of the North Koreans, a ministry official said. 

Officials said that it took a couple of days for the South’s Navy to seize the North Koreans as they attempted to run away after crossing into the South.

During an investigation, the North Koreans confessed that they and another crew member first killed the captain of the fishing boat in late October out of anger over his harsh treatment before killing the other protesting crew members one by one later, according to officials. 

They were also quoted as saying that all the bodies were dumped overboard.

They initially intended to return to North Korea and seek shelter. When the boat arrived at a North Korean port on its east coast, however, one was captured by local police, causing the other two to get scared and flee, the official said.

Yonhap

The top story in Korea that is headlining all its news outlets is the announcement that the Hwaseong Serial Killer has been identified after all these years:

Police may have solved one of the Korea’s most mysterious cold cases: the serial rapes and murders of nine women in Hwaseong, Gyeonggi, in the late 1980s.  

According to Ban Ki-soo, a chief investigator at the Gyeonggi Nambu Provincial Police Agency on Thursday, newly analyzed DNA evidence from three of the nine cases matched the DNA of a 56-year-old convict surnamed Lee currently serving a life sentence in Busan for a different murder he committed in 1994.  

This discovery could very well bring a resolution to one of the most notorious serial rape and murder sprees in Korean criminal history, which terrified Korea from 1986 to 1991 and remained unsolved for three decades.  

Yet the suspect, who was in his 20s at the time of the killings, can no longer be charged for any of those crimes since the statute of limitations for the last of the murders expired in April 2006. He has denied responsibility for all nine murders, police said.

Lee is serving a life sentence in the Busan Penitentiary for raping and murdering his wife’s sister, aged 20 at his home in Cheongju, North Chungcheong, in January 1994. According to press reports, he is a model prisoner with a taciturn personality who is eligible for parole.

A 10-victim rape and murder spree of the late 1980s and early 1990s terrified the nation — particularly due to the authorities’ inability to find a culprit — and was compared to the so-called Zodiac killings in California in the late 1960s. The killings gave rise to copycat crimes and inspired one of the most iconic blockbusters of Korean cinema, “Memories of Murder.” 

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link, but here is a video report of the announcement from Arirang News:

The suspect could have likely been identified sooner if the investigators back when the crimes happened did not discard so much evidence such as cigarette butts found at the scene that would have much DNA evidence. Instead modern day forensic scientists using new technology were able to extract DNA from the victim’s clothes that were saved as evidence to make this DNA match.

For those that haven’t I highly recommend watching the Korean movie, Memories of Murder which uses a dramatized account of the investigation to show how incompetent it was and the killer’s impact on Korean society back then.

What I have not been able to find out is if the identified killer was even a suspect during the time of the killings? The police back then had many suspects that they were trying to pin the murder on, so it would be interesting to see if this guy was even on the police’s radar back then.

This is a chilling statistic to see on the increase which appears to be influenced by the poor economy:

Kim Sung-kwan, 37, had a habit of telling lies. 

He told his wife and his in-laws that he was working at a well-known company and was about to inherit a fortune from his grandfather, but in reality, he was relying on money from his mother.

Unable to deal with her son any longer, Kim’s mother drew a line and told Kim that she could not give him any more money. Kim grew furious with her and his family. He created a plan with his wife to murder his mother, stepbrother and stepfather.

“We can buy time to get away by killing everyone in the family,” Kim said to his wife.

Kim went to his parent’s house in Yongin, Gyeonggi, on Oct. 21, 2017, and killed his mother and stepbrother. To confuse police, he sprayed flour over the bodies and covered the bodies with a blanket.

“Two down, one to go,” read Kim’s message to his wife.

Later that day, Kim killed his stepfather and took 120 million won ($102,625) from his mother’s bank account. He fled to New Zealand with his wife and two children. Kim was arrested by New Zealand police and was extradited to Korea 80 days later.

Kim was sentenced to life in prison by a Korean court.

The number of crimes toward family members is on the rise, as the number of people arrested for the murder of a family member increased from 60 in 2015 to 91 in 2018, according to data from the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office. From January to April, 32 people have been arrested for killing a family member and experts estimate this number will surpass 100 by the end of the year. The number of people arrested for domestic violence increased from 988 in 2014 to 2,414 in 2018, doubling in just four years. Criminal psychology experts said that there are many cases where people take out their stress and anger on their families.

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link.

On July 11, 2008 Pak Wang-Ja, a 53 yr-old wife/mom/tourist from SK, while out on a walk, was shot in the back & killed by NK guards at Mt. Geumgang resort in #NorthKorea, funded by SK's Hyundai, allegedly for having walked into a no-entry zone. NK never apologized. #Engagement

— Sung-Yoon Lee (@SungYoonLee1) July 10, 2019

A trip to Jeju that a man took to visit his daughter at his ex-wife’s house did not go very well:

Police have arrested a woman who allegedly murdered her ex-husband on Jeju Island and mutilated his body before discarding it in at least three locations across the nation. 

Ko Yoo-jung, 36, was apprehended at her house last Saturday in Chungju, North Chungcheong Province. 

The victim, surnamed Kang, 36, was meeting Ko on Jeju to see their six-year-old son for the first time in two years since she took custody after their divorce. Kang’s family reported him missing after he didn’t return.

Ko traveled to Wando from Jeju on a ferry three days after the alleged murder. She was caught on surveillance camera footage throwing a plastic bag into the ocean during her trip. 

She had purchased 30 trash bags and a suitcase from a supermarket about two hours before she left Jeju. 

Police suspected that she threw away a similar plastic bag near her father’s house in Gimpo, Gyeonggi Province. She returned to her house on May 31. 

Korea Times

This is an absolutely horrible crime:

A man in Jinju, southeastern South Korea, set his apartment aflame on Wednesday and attacked fleeing residents with a knife, killing five of them and injuring 13, police said.
The arson and murder suspect, identified only as a 42-year-old man, set fire to his apartment building in Jinju, about 435 kilometers southeast of Seoul, at around 4:29 a.m. before randomly stabbing other residents coming out of their houses to evacuate, police said.

Five residents, including a 12-year-old, were stabbed to death in the apartment stairways, and 13 others were injured, with three of them in critical condition, police said.
The suspect was detained on the scene at about 4:50 a.m. after a confrontation with police.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but condolences to all the victims’ families.

There has been another horrible murder incident on Okinawa that will probably get the anti-US protesters riled up again:

A U.S. sailor fatally stabbed a Japanese woman and then killed himself on Okinawa, Japanese officials said.
The two were found dead Saturday morning inside a six-story apartment building in the Kuwae district of Chatan, according to an Okinawa Prefectural Police spokesman.
The woman’s child was present when the incident occurred and called a relative, who then called police at 7:26 a.m., the spokesman said.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

The Indonesian woman accused of murdering Kim Jong-nam was released last month and it appears next month the Vietnamese woman involved in the murder will be let go as well:

A Vietnamese woman who is the only suspect in custody for the killing of the North Korean leader’s brother pleaded guilty to a lesser charge in a Malaysian court on Monday and her lawyer said she could be freed as early as next month.
Doan Thi Huong had faced a murder charge, which carried the death penalty if she was convicted, in the slaying of Kim Jong Nam, who died after being accosted by two women in a Kuala Lumpur airport terminal. Huong nodded as a translator read the new charge to her: voluntarily causing injury with a dangerous weapon, VX nerve agent.
High Court judge Azmi Ariffin sentenced Huong to three years and four months from the day she was arrested on Feb. 15, 2017. Huong’s lawyer Hisyam Teh Poh Teik said his client is expected to be freed by the first week of May, after a one-third reduction in her sentence for good behavior.
“I am happy,” Huong, 30, told reporters as she left the courtroom, adding she thought it was a fair outcome.
While handing out a jail term short of the maximum 10 years the new charge carried, the judge told Huong she was “very, very lucky” and he wished her “all the best.” Vietnamese officials in the courtroom cheered when the decision was announced.

Associated Press

I wonder what the verdict on this would have been if it was a Malaysian murdered like this instead of the son of a foreign despot?

It is speculated that this release was a political favor that Malaysia gave to Indonesia’s President Joko Widodo who goes up for re-election next month:

 An Indonesian woman held for two years on suspicion of killing North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s half brother was freed from custody Monday after Malaysian prosecutors unexpectedly dropped the murder charge against her.
Siti Aisyah cried and hugged her Vietnamese co-defendant, Doan Thi Huong, before leaving the courtroom and being ushered away in an embassy car. She told reporters that she had only learned Monday morning that she would be freed.

“I feel very happy,” she said later at a news conference at the Indonesian Embassy. “I didn’t expect that today will be my freedom day.”
The two young women were accused of smearing VX nerve agent on Kim Jong Nam’s face in an airport terminal in Kuala Lumpur on Feb. 13, 2017. They have said they thought they were taking part in a prank for a TV show. They had been the only suspects in custody after four North Korean suspects fled the country the same morning Kim was killed.
The High Court judge discharged Aisyah without an acquittal after prosecutors applied to drop the murder charge against her. They did not give any reason.

The trial will resume Thursday, with prosecutors expected to reply to a request by Huong’s lawyers asking the government to similarly withdraw the charges against her.
Indonesia’s government said its continual high-level lobbying resulted in Aisyah’s release. The foreign ministry said in a statement that she was “deceived and did not realize at all that she was being manipulated by North Korean intelligence.”
It said Aisyah, a migrant worker, believed that she was part of a reality TV show and never had any intention of killing Kim.

MSN via a reader tip

You can read much more at the link, but I like how they call Aisyah a migrant worker when she was a prostitute in Malaysia and that is how the North Korean agent recruited her.

Anyway her co-defendant Doan Thi Huong from Vietnam I suspect will get released as well since Aisyah was let go. The four North Korean agents that organized the murder all fled back to North Korea which means likely no one will be held responsible for murdering someone with a dangerous nerve agent in the middle of a busy international airport.