18-year Korean fugitive in fatal DUI case back in custody

Song Kyung-ho

Charged in 1996 with driving drunk and killing a woman, Chicago businessman Song Kyung-ho posted a low bond, liquidated assets worth more than $1 million and slipped out of the country to his native South Korea, Chicago Tribune reported.

For years he lived openly there in a glass-and-concrete suburban high-rise.

But on Wednesday FBI agents escorted Song on a long-delayed return flight to O'Hare International Airport.

Wearing a gray T-shirt and baseball cap, and sporting a wispy white goatee, the 75-year-old was handed over to Bartlett police and the Cook County sheriff's fugitive warrant unit.

He now awaits trial on the 18-year-old charges of reckless homicide and aggravated driving under the influence of alcohol. This time, the court denied bond.

"Finally there is going to be justice. We never thought it was going to happen," said Brenda Molina, the daughter of Sonia Naranjo, who was killed in a collision involving Song. "Hopefully my ma can rest in peace."

Song's long-dormant case was reactivated after the Tribune investigated it as part of the newspaper's 2011 "Fugitives From Justice" series. A year later the Tribune separately tracked Song to a suburb of Seoul; as part of a collaboration for the Tribune investigation, a reporter from the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists interviewed Song in South Korea.

Song spoke little of Naranjo and her family. Instead he described how his life had unraveled since he became a fugitive. "I am such an unlucky guy," Song said.

He fled to another location in South Korea after those interviews, but Korean and U.S. authorities tracked him down. Arrested in December 2013, he was held in custody in South Korea until that country's Ministry of Justice processed his extradition back to Chicago.

Song's easy flight and years of freedom underscored the pervasive law enforcement lapses that allow suspects charged with murder, rape and other serious felonies to evade trial simply by fleeing U.S. borders.

He is the fifth international fugitive highlighted in the Tribune series who was subsequently captured. Two of the five have been extradited to Cook County — one was convicted of murder last year and the other awaits trial on homicide charges. The remaining two await extradition from India and Poland. Several other cases have been reactivated, according to law enforcement sources and victims' families.

Authorities had accused Song of being intoxicated in October 1996 when he rear-ended several people pushing a disabled station wagon to an emergency exit on Lake Street near Route 59 in Bartlett. The collision killed Naranjo, a 43-year-old Ecuadorean immigrant, and seriously injured another person.