Police: Murder suspect wanted to kill 28 more

Kim Il-gon, center, a kidnapping and murder suspect, tries to attack police officers with a knife as they attempt to catch him on a street in eastern Seoul, Thursday. Kim, who allegedly abducted a woman from a discount store parking lot and later killed her, had a list of 28 people on whom he planned to take revenge, police said. / Yonhap

By Kim Se-jeong

Police said Friday that Kim Il-gon, 48, who was apprehended the previous day for allegedly kidnapping and killing a woman, had a list of 28 people he planned to seek revenge against.

According to officers at the Seongdong Police Station in eastern Seoul, they found two pieces of paper with 28 names in Kim’s pockets.

His intended victims’ professions and addresses were also listed, including those of a judge who had tried him, a detective who had investigated him and a female restaurant owner, police said.

Some on the list were written with only professions as Kim did not remember their names. For a nurse, he said she was not nice to him.

“He also muttered to himself, ‘I need to kill them all,’” a police officer said.

Police have not yet found any evidence that Kim had made any attempt to hurt any of the 28 on the list.

While he told police that he killed the woman accidentally while trying to take her car and cell phone, they suspect it could be a hate crime directed at women. “He also said that when he had been engaged in a food supply job, female market owners usually did not pay the money they owed in time and some of them just ran away without paying,” the officer said.

Police said he kept saying he had done nothing wrong, also mumbling, “I should continue to live” repeatedly while being transferred for questioning. He was also aggressive with the interrogators, often refusing to answer their questions.

A search for him began on Sept. 11 after the body of the victim, Joo, 35, was found in the trunk of an SUV at an apartment parking lot in eastern Seoul. The vehicle was on fire when it was discovered, and the woman had been stabbed in the neck and torso.

Joo was abducted at a discount store parking lot in Asan, South Chungcheong Province, two days earlier.

Kim confessed to killing her, but said he killed her because she tried to run away. Kim told police that he had felt sympathy for the dead woman after seeing her ID card in her wallet. He allegedly drove down to Busan, near her hometown, to find a burial spot for her, but ended up not going. He allegedly drove across the country before parking the car at the apartment parking lot and setting it on fire.

He was caught on Thursday near the parking lot after a disturbance at a nearby veterinary clinic. He demanded a euthanasia drug, and threatened the staff with a knife after they rejected his request.

After a scuffle, two police officers forced him to surrender.

However, police came under fire because of their allegedly negligent management of ex-convicts, as Kim had 22 previous criminal convictions.

On Aug. 24, Kim also attempted a similar attack on a woman with a knife in the parking lot of another discount store in Ilsan, Gyeonggi Province. Kim eventually stole her car.