It appears the police got really lucky Thursday when they nabbed a man who would later confess to murdering at least 20 people since late last year. The boys in blue picked up 33-year-old Yoo Young-chul on Thursday for beating up a (very lucky, as it would turn out) prostitute in Gangnam — he escaped during questioning (!) and was picked up again Friday. During his second get together with the law, he confessed to killing 19 people — 11 young women (most of whom appeared to have been prostitutes) and eight wealthy elderly individuals in a killing spree that began in September 2003. He also showed police the spot in the mountains near Seogang University where he had buried the dismembered bodies of his female victims — police exhumed 11 bodies, although 5 of them were so badly decomposed that their identities were unclear.
Yoo, an epileptic and ex-con who spent time as a resident of the rather notorious Cheongsong Correctional Facility (nice town, shitty prison), was a man with issues:
Yoo Young-chul, 33, who allegedly killed at least 19 people from late last year, harbored hatred toward rich families and women, police said.
The cold-blooded murder spree has sent shockwaves throughout the nation.
Born to a poor family in Seoul, he lost his father at age 14 due to epilepsy. He thought he would die young after his brother also died of the same disease at the age of 32. After being captured by police, Yoo said he was suffering from minor epilepsy. He was also treated for mental illness in the mid-1990s.
He was first put into a juvenile prison when he was 18 on theft charges. He married a masseuse in 1991 at age 21 and has an 11-year-old son.
Since his marriage, however, he has spent 11 years in prison after being convicted of sexual violence, robbery and other crimes. He divorced in May 2002, while serving a term at a Chonju detention center.
Last November, he met a woman working at a phone sex parlor and he asked her to marry him, but the proposal was turned down because of his criminal records and previous marriage, according to police.
With blinded hatred and hostility towards society, he set up a well-arranged plot to kill people in wealthy districts and women.
And kill he did:
His killing spree began when he murdered a couple in Sinsa-dong, Seoul on Sept. 24 of last year, 13 days after he was released from the Chonju detention center. Since then, he murdered at least 18 more, mostly those aged in their 70s and 80s and women.
In March, he killed a phone sex parlor employee in Sinchon, Seoul. He murdered 10 more women, including masseuses, at motels and his residence in Mapo-gu, Seoul, and buried their bodies on mountainsides in the city.
The KT also ran a chronology of serial killing in Korea.
More on this as I digest the info.
14 Comments
This is kind of odd. I cannot recall how many times I was told, by various people of all ages, “There is no crime in Korea.” The perp must have been at least part American, worked for USFK or watched American movies. Such things neverh happened in Korea before the Japanese and later the Americans forced their Imperialistic agenda on Korea.
“There is no crime in Korea” Heh. They say the same in Japan. Liars, all of them.
The sad truth is that Tokyo (NO guns allowed) saw more innocents killed by guns than my gun-toting (and that’s a good thing) town in the USA.
Logistically, how did this guy bury 1 person a month and not get caught? I can see him getting lucky for, say, 6 months. But for 18+ months? I sense some neighbors are/were keeping some information to themselves (and possibly for good reason).
“There’s no crime in Korea.” Are you telling me Koreans were telling this to you? What kind of people have you been around? Perhaps they saw in you someone to whom they could say that…
I can’t recount the times Koreans told me that Korea is full of crooks, that the president (KYS) is a thief, and so on…
What we perhaps could agree on is that there’s often a tendency to put the blame on bad foreign influences.
I never understood why Maj Hart dumped his wife off the bridge and didn’t bury her on a mountainside.
RE: “More on this as I digest the info.”
Having lived on the other side of the creek they’re crossing in that picture, I’m having trouble digesting anyting at all.
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When I first came to Korea in ‘97 I had Koreans telling me that there was no violent crime in Korea. I decided that it was just a ploy to make themselves and Korea feel better.
Of course every country has rapists, killers, brutish thugs, and corrupt politicians.
OK, yes, the “there is no violent crime in Korea” mantra gets old after a while, but Seoul ain’t exactly Washington D.C., either. Generally speaking, I feel pretty safe everywhere in Korea outside of — ironically enough — Haebang-chon, and even there, it’s not the locals I’m worried about.
Violent crime in Korea is a different matter, and definitely the cases recorded as such, homicides for example, are much much lower than for example in my own peaceful country where wealth is widely distributed and income differences are among the smallest in the world. (Just can’t help thinking of this when the lack of distribution of wealth and the huge differences in wealth are given as reasons to why this kind of things happen.)
Ahh, Haebang-chon,where I spent a year. Sure had a lot of fun. Newly wed, great location for sightseeing, cool view of Namsan, 15 minutes for anywhere. Those were fun days.
I’ve walked around Seoul at 2~4 AM hundreds of times and never felt threatened or scared before, compared to some areas in downtown Atlanta or uptown Manhattan where you can get spooked even in daylight. Then again, I was drunk most of the time, so maybe I just didn’t notice.
On the other hand, if you asked women living in Seoul if they feel safe walking home or riding a cab at night, I think most of them would answer no.
Btw, Robert, are you going to have a “recent comments” list like you did in your old blog?
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