Police say Mr. C, the French homeowner believed to be the father of two dead infants found frozen in his home freezer, has lived in Korea since August 2002.
It was previously believed he’d been in Korea for only a year.
Prior to moving into his current residence in Banpo-dong in August of last year, he’d lived for three years in a villa apartment in Bangbae-dong.
An official from the villa apartment told the JoongAng Ilbo that Mr. C and his wife used to go out often and invite neighborhood Frenchmen (and Frenchwomen, presumably) to parties.
He also said the maid, who used to come once or twice a week, was a young Filipina who appeared to be in her late 20s/early 30s.
Accordingly, police are investigating phone records and the like to learn about Mr. C’s relationships with members of the fairer sex.
Or so said the JoongAng.
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“He also said the maid, who used to come once or twice a week, was a young Filipina who appeared to be in her late 20s/early 30s….”
there ya go
But they already ruled her out according to the Marmot.
i think they ruled out the maid when they thought she was 49. there might be more than one maid. the family may have hired a cleaning service, and the service was sending different people to the same house.
i wonder if there is a word in korean for maid and another one for cleaner. i always thought a maid lived with you, but a house cleaner came once or twice a week. when i first heard the frenchman’s family had a maid, i figured they were fairly rich. but, having someone come once a week to clean is just middle class (and there is nothing wrong with that).
i have nothing to go on here, but does anyone else think the police are gathering information sort of slowly? i would think that with a big case that’s in the papers, the cops would be running down leads pretty quickly.
Do we know if South Korea can have the French extradite? My hunch back at the office tells me we won’t be seeing Pier anytime soon.
France does not extradite French citizens. Period.
Sperwer’s right: France is not sending one of its Gallic brethren back to face inferior foreign justice in any country. Third-country nationals get deported, but French, no.
On an unrelated note, Railwaycharm — good for you, hiring a hunchback!
Ah, glad the joke was not lost!
This story must be false! Substitute each instance of France with USA, and French with Migooken and we will have a story consistent with the collective conscience.
“On an unrelated note, Railwaycharm — good for you, hiring a hunchback!”
That was funny.
All I can do is tee them up!
조엘—They ruled out their current maid, the 49-year-old woman. The maid referred to here was the one they had when they lived in Bangbae-dong, who was apparently much younger and, presumably, more fertile.
Sorry if I didn’t make that clear.
Cabbage patch kids… Ice box babies….The former has a longer shelf life.
This whole sordid tale is so complicated. I’ve only been half following it, and I’ve lost track of most of the details already. Guess I’ll have to go back and read over the previous posts on this story to figure it all out.
Robert, how is this story playing in the Korean-language media? It’s been a while since I last watched the KBS News, and I don’t read the online papers…is it getting as much play as some of the more sensational crimes do on this side of the Pacific Ocean? It’s all the more salacious, I suppose, because it appears to be a foreigners-only affair (in both senses of the word).
This guy’s back story sounds more and more like Korea hasn’t been too boring for him.
Robert, is Mr. C a homeowner? He was orginally described as having a Korean landlord, so I’d thought he was someone’s tenant. Is that not correct?
Sewing—It’s getting a fair amount of play. Not nearly the same kind of play sensational cases get in North America, but the media does find it intiguing. These kind of things don’t happen that often over here, after all, and it’s got a strong wiff of scandal to help
Gbnhj—the media keeps referring to him as the homeowner, although I guess the more proper translation—in this case, anyway—-would be resident. I don’t believe he actually owns the apartment, but rather rents it from his company or a Korean landlord. But I don’t know the guy, so I really can’t say for certain…
About the homeowner thing. He decidedly doesn’t own the villa – esp not in Pangbae-dong – and doesn’t rent it from his company. Rather, his company rents it for him, and lets him live in it. That’s standard procedure for French companies in Korea. On a side note, villas and apartments alike are rented on a one-armed-bandit-basis: 3 years’ worth of [expensive] rent upfront. Should the tenant move out, the remainder is supposedly refunded by the landlord to the company – unless the new guy just takes over his predecessor’s lodgings.
As for extradition, yup, no extraditing French people overseas. BUT, should the Korean Ministry of Justice present a valid case to its French counterpart, Mr. C. could well be prosecuted *in France*. Or so says a friend who went through law school.
Correct, but VERY unlikely (snowballs in hell…) and pretty hard to make a case when the suspect/material witness is not available for the investigative phase.
ok we know he’s the father…. We also know that he was in France at the time of the kids’ approximate birth? And death?
So far he’s guilty of cheating on his wife.
In France that’s not a crime “something about arm pit hair” I don’t know.
Either way if he’s not the prime suspect then why even talk about extradition? The police should be seeking a female who had the babies and from there go on what happend to them.
I think adultery is only a crime in countries where they deal with wimin with pits and stones and public executions.
But in France it’s still grounds for divorce…
I don’t think we know any of that yet.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t France follow a system that basically starts with the premise “guilty until proven innocent”? Does anyone know anything about the ’superiority’ of French justice?
I think dda was being sarcastic (I hope). That’s certainly my impression of the French system as well, but all I know about it is what I read in Camus’ L’Etranger 20 years ago.
Ah, sorry: that was Brendon Carr who made the comment about the French justice system. Well, I’m fairly sure he was being sarcastic.
Wrong. Adultery IS a crime in Korea and there are something like 300 Koreans doing time. A majority of those prosecuted are women.
Sonagi nangja,
If there are only 300 Koreans doing time, then they must catch 1 out of every 100,000 who commit it
I seem to recall reading about a year ago here on the Marmot’s Hole that it is even possible for the aggrieved party to an affair to sue the interloper, and that some affairs have even been set up as scams to get money from unwitting Casanovas…anyone recall this?
The French system is, like most others, based on the presumption of innocence – even if the media usually try the accused before, during and after the case is tried in court. Attorneys and judges have to go through separate schools after law school, and attorneys don’t get “promoted” to judges.
I think the next step is to beat a confession out of the former maid, or don’t we operate that way anymore?
As a now deceased French entertainer said, impersonating a cop:
“Come on. What are we gonna do if we can’t punch them, kick their balls, and stick batons up their ass? Some don’t even speak the language!”
All true. Korea also recognizes a cause of action for seduction by false promise of marriage, and there have been many cases, one involving a foreign legal consultant who was involved in litigation with a local girl for years. She got an order garnishing his salary while her case was pending; he countersued for defamation; she routinely harrassed him and physically assualted anyone he was dating whose identity she was able to discover Finally, she showed up at the office where he worked and faked a suicide by pills and booze in the hallway outside his office shortly after he had succeeded in getting the garnishment revoked. He got out of Dodge shortly after that.
Sperwer, let me guess…he now resides in the Philippines?
Dogbert:
Actually no - not right out of the box, anyway. At least for a bit, he had a good job in another Asian country, but I got the impression that didn’t last too long. He did/does own property in Manila, though, so yours is a good bet.
That hippie activist Einhorn was prosecuted in France a few years ago for a murder committed in the US, no?
No, he was extradited from France - after a very lengthy and complex series of procedures — to stand trial in Philadelpia for the murder of his former girlfriend Holly Maddox. He was convicted in the US and sentenced to life imprisonment. Actually, Einhorn had already been found guilty and sentenced to death in absentia after he fled after his original indictment. France, however, refused to extradite him on the basis of a conviction in absentia and because he had been sentenced to death. The Pennsylvania legislature had to pass a special bill enabling his retrial without possibility of another death sentence before the French would extradite him. Apopos the topic under discussion, two points stand out: (1) he was an American citizen (not French, and hence immune from extradition, and (ii) the French still wouldn’t extradite him unless the US authorities retried him in person AND enacted safeguards to ensure he couldn’t be executed — both alien principles that the French effectively imposed on the US justice system as a condition of agreeing to his extradition.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t the death penalty off the table anyhow, since Pennsylvania didn ‘t have a death penalty back when the crime was committed?
You are correct. I checked and discovered that my recollection (that I had checked against the CourtTv account) that he originally had been sentenced to death was wrong; Pennsylvania did not have the death penalty at the time of the crime. Interestingly, though, when this fact was pointed out to the French, they were not persuaded that he couldn’t still face the death penalty if returned to the US; hence, the need for special assurances to be made by the US authorities in ordert o obtain his extradition. There also was an effort made to argue before the the Conseil d’Etat that the PA law providing for a retrial of anyone convicted in absentia if necessary to obtain extradition might be unconstitutional under both the PA and US Constitutions. In a fit of unusual humility, the Conseil d’Etat found it was not competent to make such a determination and declined to halt the extraduition.
The interesting part about this is the in abstentia part: France had/has this too: par contumace, which is the same. So I don’t understand why they’d balk at the idea… Never mind, I may be French but my fellow citizens never fail to surprise me…
Doesn’t sound like he wants to go back, does he?
Who would?
French Freezer Baby Dude would.
nah, weather’s better here…