The Marmot’s Hole

The Yoo Young-chul serial murder case gets even grimmer — apparently, the number of victims to which he has confessed has reached 23:

Self-confessed serial killer Yoo Young-chul told police yesterday he murdered at least 26 people.

The Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency said it was probing new testimony by the 33-year-old Yoo, who was arrested Thursday for beating up a masseuse and then shocked police and the nation by saying he killed at least 20 people in the past 10 months.

Now, police said, Yoo has raised the total of victims to 26 and said he had murdered several people in Busan, South Korea’s second largest city. There was no immediate word whether the six additional deaths included Busan, where police said they had not yet confirmed any murders.

The new total includes a Seoul fake Viagra vendor whom Yoo — posing as a police officer — arrested and killed on April 14; he took the body to Wolmi-do, Incheon, where he burned it (after cutting off its hands) together with the victim’s car, trying to ignite a nearby oil storage facility in order to hide his crime.

Anyway, Yoo might have been a sick fuck, but no one will fault his intelligence or preparation:

Police said Yoo took extreme care covering his tracks wherever he killed.

Before he attacked elderly wealthy people, he conducted on-the-spot surveillance of their residences, confirming emergency exits beforehand in case he ran into an unforeseen problem.

He pretended to be a policeman, showing a forged identification card which he had made himself.

While Yoo said he never stole money or valuables from any of the upscale residences where he killed, he collected enough on which to live by periodically patrolling red-light districts and extorting money from pimps or prostitutes.

He told police he never had sexual relationships with any of the women he killed because he did not want to leave any telltale DNA. He said he dismembered the bodies of his female victims and stripped off their fingerprints with a knife to confuse investigators.

After he was arrested Thursday, he pretended to be lame and fled when police momentarily relaxed. About 12 hours later a policeman spotted and arrested him at Yeongdeungpo Station in southestern Seoul.

The lame man routine seem familiar? It should — Yoo reportedly got many of his ideas from movies:

Yoo kept three murder movie DVDs in the drawer of his computer desk that seem to speak of his own crimes — the Korean film “Public Enemy” and U.S. films “Very Bad Things” and “Normal Life.” It would seem that the Yoo killings have much in common, perhaps coincidentally, with “Public Enemy,” which depicted the life of a serial killer. In the film, there is a depraved scene of the main character, a killer, going into his own house at night and murdering his elderly parents, and he targets older, wealthy people.

What’s more, in the dark comedy “Very Bad Things,” there is a part in which someone dismembers a corpse with a chainsaw. On the movie poster as well, there is a picture of star actor Christian Slater holding a chainsaw, reminding one of Yoo’s crimes. He also imitated another movie scene when he pretended to walk with a limp at the time he was arrested in order to lull the police into inattention. In the film “Usual Suspects,” viewers are left speechless when it’s revealed that among several suspects, the real criminal is Kevin Spacey’s character, who walked with a limp. In Yoo’s lair, one gets the strong impression, from both the DVDs and DVD magazines, that movies were his “criminal textbook.”

Haven’t seen “Public Enemy,” although ironically enough, it was on cable tonight. Liked “Usual Suspects,” of course, and while I seem to recall the Flying Yangban despising “Very Bad Things,” I rather enjoyed it. If nothing else, you get the opportunity to see Kobe Tai do her thing without having to go to the adult section of your local video store.

UPDATE: Ugly is the best policy — when it came to women, it appears Yoo had very discriminating tastes. Of the chuljang masaji yeoseong (massage girls who are dispatched to motel rooms), he killed only “elegent beauties“; he sent away those girls who didn’t satisfy his beauty standards.

ASSHAT OF THE WEEK: Some wanker actually started a Yoo Young-chul Internet fan cafe. His only competition is the dickhead who left this message on his site: “He hasn’t been convicted of anything… To murder 20 or so people in 10 months without getting caught isn’t easy. Isn’t it impressive? Moroever, he only killed rich people and whores.”

The site was apparently shut down by the portal site due to adverse Internet user reaction.

UPDATE II: The Chosun has three pages of photos from Yoo’s home, the crime scenes and other places related to this tragedy.