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| Police investigate a site near Daecheong Dam on the outskirts of Daejeon, Friday, where a woman's body was dumped the previous day. Yonhap |
By Jun Ji-hye
A local court will decide on Monday on whether to issue arrest warrants for three men who allegedly kidnapped and murdered a woman in her 40s, according to police and the prosecution, Sunday.
The Seoul Central District Court will review the prosecution's request to issue the warrants for the three men in their 30s at 11 a.m. Monday on charges of murder and abandonment of a body.
The three men were suspected of forcing the woman into a vehicle in front of an apartment complex in Yeoksam-dong in Seoul's Gangnam District at 11:46 p.m. on Wednesday.
According to police, the suspects confessed to murdering her the following day in Daejeon, 140 kilometers south of Seoul, and dumping her body on a mountain near Daecheong Dam on the outskirts of Daejeon.
As a surveillance camera caught the abduction, police pursued the suspects and caught two of them on Friday in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province. Another man was caught in southern Seoul's Nonhyeon-dong on the same day.
Police located the victim's body on Friday evening after questioning the suspects.
The initial autopsy results indicated that the victim may have died from suffocation, as no particular external injuries were found, police said, adding that a final decision will be made after the results of further toxicology tests come out.
Investigators at the Seoul Suseo Police Station tentatively concluded that the trio had committed the crime to steal the victim's property.
"One of the suspects testified that they had committed the crime to steal cryptocurrency owned by the victim," a police officer of the police station told a media briefing, Saturday.
"We are checking the scale of cryptocurrency owned by the victim and whether the suspects had actually stolen it."
The officer noted that police will further investigate the exact motives of the crime after the court grants the arrest warrants.
According to police, the three had planned out the crime meticulously beforehand, as they testified they had been preparing for two to three months by, for example, tailing the victim and purchasing tools.
Police are not ruling out the possibility of murder by contract, considering that two of the three suspects were not personally acquainted with the victim.
"We are investigating the possibility of murder by contract as well," the officer said. "As we are well aware of the seriousness of the case, we will be supported professional investigators from the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency to enhance our investigation team."
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