By Kim Rahn
Staff Reporter
A mounting call for debt repayment is believed to have driven Lee Ho-seong, 41, a former pro baseball player, to kill a 45-year-old woman and her three daughters, police officers said Tuesday.
The bodies of the four family members were found in a graveyard late Monday night 22 days after they went missing, while the key suspect in the murder was also found dead in a river Tuesday. Lee and the woman were involved in a romantic relationship, according to their acquaintances.
Police discovered the bodies buried in a graveyard in Hwasun, South Jeolla Province, where Lee's father is buried, following a laborer's report. The laborer testified that a man, who was later confirmed to be Lee, asked him and other workers to dig pits there to set up tombstones on Feb. 19, a day after the family disappeared.
He reported it Monday morning after learning that Lee was on a wanted list.
``The bodies were not severely damaged, nor decayed much. Each of the four were wrapped in vinyl and put into huge travel bags,'' a police officer said.
Through an autopsy, the National Institute of Scientific Investigation concluded Kim and her second and third daughters aged 13 and 19 were strangled, while her first daughter, 20, died from injuries sustained from a fractured skull.
Police found Lee's body near a bridge in the Han River in Seoul Monday afternoon, following a citizen's report. Considering the body was not decayed at all, the police suspect Lee committed suicide by drowning in the morning after the police made public his identity.
It was found that Lee sent a letter to his brother and a baseball organization chief two days before he committed suicide. In the letter to his brother, he expressed regret to his family and asked the brother to take care of his son. In another letter to the chief, Lee implied the suicide, saying that he missed the old days and that he would go to the heaven first.
With the suspect dead, why Lee committed the gruesome murder will be the most difficult thing for police to figure out.
The police presume he was pressed for debt payment from Kim. A few days before the crime, Lee borrowed 170 million won from Kim after having her withdraw the money in cash. ``Lee, already hugely in debt, was unable to pay back the money. We suspect he killed Kim as she urged him to reimburse her,'' the officer said.
The police suspect Lee killed the girls because either the girls witnessed him murdering Kim or he wanted to cover up the money borrowing entirely.
Kim used to say to her friends that she and Lee would marry soon, but the police found that Lee did not intend to marry her and was dating several women. He also sent the 170 million won to several people, including his brother and two women, whose exact relationship with Lee is not known yet.
The police are also looking into whether Lee was involved in the suicide of Kim's late husband. The husband hanged himself due to depression in July after leaving a will. Kim started dating Lee in February last year before her husband's death, and police are examining the possibility that it was not a suicide but a murder.
Lee has been in debt since a series of businesses failures, police officials said.
The police are also investigating another missing person case involving Lee and his former business partner. The partner, Cho, went missing in 2005 after going out to meet Lee, but police stopped searching for him after concluding he had gone into hiding to avoid repaying a debt.
Kim and her three daughters disappeared on Feb. 18 after telling their friends that they would travel for several days.
Police obtained a CCTV record showing Lee carrying large travel bags in and out of Kim's apartment in Seoul in the evening. Lee left after loading the bags in Kim's car. A man was also shown driving Kim's car to the apartment two days later and leaving after parking it in the parking lot.
Police said Lee seemed to have elaborate schemes for the crime: He prepared the bags in advance and sprinkled ink on the mattress of Kim's bed to cover a blood stain.
Investigators are not ruling out the possibility of an accomplice ― the man recorded in the CCTV in the parking lot appeared not to be Lee, and it may have been difficult for Lee alone to kill and bury the four victims.