By Lee Kyung-min
A 17-year-old girl, the prime suspect in the killing and dismembering of an eight-year-old, refused to answer questions, only repeating “I don’t remember,” police said Thursday.
According to the Incheon Yeonsu Police Station, the suspect, whose identity is being withheld, was put under emergency detention at 10:35 p.m., Wednesday, six hours after the victim was reported missing. The two lived in different buildings in the same apartment block.
The detention came five minutes after police discovered a black plastic bag containing the victim’s partially dismembered body, near a water tank at the top of the building where the suspect lived.
The police said they secured a statement from the victim’s friend who was with her at a playground near their school at 12:44 p.m., Wednesday. The friend told police the victim said she had to borrow a cell phone to call her mother.
Four minutes later, surveillance video footage showed the suspect and the victim getting on the same elevator together at 12:49 p.m., in the building where the suspect lived. The footage also showed the suspect taking the elevator alone and leaving the building more than two hours later.
The police said they confirmed the suspect talked the victim into following her after offering to let her use the cell phone.
Police secured what it believes is the murder weapon in the suspect’s home.
The suspect dropped out of school last year as she was unable to fit in with others and had a history of hospital treatments over an extended period of time for a possible mental illness, police said.