Collegian Killer Reenacts Crime
Arrested Murderer Implicated in Other Missing Cases
By Park Si-soo
Staff Reporter
A 38-year-old man was arrested Monday on charges of kidnapping and murdering a female university student.
The suspect was apprehended on Sunday in Gunpo, a satellite town outside Seoul, nearly 40 days after the young woman went missing.
The man, identified only as Kang, confessed to strangling the student after a ``failed'' rape, police said. He reenacted the disposal of her body at the scene Tuesday. Kang has a previous record of theft and other crimes.
Police said they traced his whereabouts after analyzing nearly 7,000 vehicles caught by 300 CCTVs installed near the spot where the woman went missing.
Her body was found buried in a rice paddy in Hwaseong, Gyeonggi Province, only several kilometers away, after the suspect told police of the location. Kang is accused of luring the victim ㅡ who had been on her way home ㅡ to his car and stealing her credit card before strangling her.
His partially hidden face was spotted by a CCTV camera installed at a Gunpo bank where he withdrew 700,000 won ($500) using the credit card.
He told the police that he committed the crime ``accidentally.''
Police suspect he may be connected to other unresolved missing persons cases involving women in the same area in recent years ― one was found dead in May 2007 in the vicinity of where the female student was found.
Investigators found various implements that could be used as weapons in the car used to kidnap the student, including a military shovel, a chain and an ax. Contraceptives were also found in its trunk, they said.
Police are also re-investigating a fire at his home in October 2005, which claimed the lives of the suspect's wife, child and mother-in-law. At the time, they concluded it was accidental, after which he received 400 million won ($287,000) in insurance from a local company.
But now police suspect he might have set fire to the house deliberately for the large insurance payment. Police confirmed that Kang had signed four life insurance policies only weeks before the fire.