Police believe a woman found dead on Jeju Island this week is from China or Southeast Asia after they examined the body of the homicide victim, they said Friday.
The dead woman is most likely in her 30s and was discovered near a barley field in the city of Seogwipo on South Korea's largest island of Jeju on Wednesday. When a man gathering bracken found her body, it was partially covered by grass and soil and badly decomposed.
The Seogwipo Police Station began to distribute leaflets to ask the public for any leads to identify the victim.
In the leaflets, the police give a description of the woman. She was 163 centimeters tall, had curly blonde hair, and wore a striped sweater, a blue skirt and black leggings that are sold in Chinese shopping malls. She wore black semi-boots with the words "Design By Korea" on the sole, it said.
The police, who do not discount the possibility that the victim is a South Korean, are working to identify her by her fingerprints, but no South Korean has yet to match them.
Investigators have also sent DNA samples taken from her body to the National Institute for Scientific Investigation to see if she was sexually assaulted.
The results of an autopsy conducted the previous day showed that the victim sustained a total of six wounds to the neck and chest, which were all made with a sharp weapon.
As the body was badly decomposed, the police have failed to determine when she was killed. But they believe she has been dead for less than four months, because the owner of the barley field did not see the body when he planted barley seeds in the field between December and January. (Yonhap)