A closer look at Incheon family shooting: Minutes after birthday song, father pulled trigger

A police line is set up at the entrance of an apartment building in Songdo-dong, Incheon, where a homemade gun murder occurred on July 20. Courtesy of reader

On his own birthday Sunday evening, "B" arrived at his son’s 33rd-floor apartment around 7 p.m., sharing cake, conversation and family photos with his daughter-in-law, two young grandchildren, and a guest.

For two hours, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. But shortly after the birthday song ended, the 62-year-old father stepped out, saying he was headed to a convenience store, and returned with a homemade gun.

When he returned, his son opened the door, only to be met with the barrel of a crude weapon fashioned from a steel pipe. The older man fired three shots, two of which struck his son in the chest and side.

The third round hit the front door. He then aimed the gun at his son’s friend and pulled the trigger twice more, but both attempts misfired.

According to the family, the gunman also tried to pursue his daughter-in-law, who had first hidden the children in a room before coming back out to help her injured husband.

As she retreated and locked the door, B shouted for her to come out and attempted to force his way in. She managed to call police, while the shooter fled the scene in a rental car parked nearby.

The suspect was arrested three hours later, around 12:20 a.m. on July 21, in Seoul’s Seocho District.

Since then, he has largely remained silent during police questioning, and investigators have yet to determine a clear motive.

In a statement provided to the Hankook Ilbo, the victim’s family said, “We cannot begin to understand why he did this.”

While some observers have speculated that resentment toward his ex-wife’s success or personal feelings of failure may have driven him, the family rejected such claims.

According to the family, the suspect divorced his wife in 2000, shortly after being sentenced to a suspended prison term for a sexual offense in 1999.

Still, he continued to live with her in a de facto relationship and did not reveal the divorce to their son. It was only in 2017, when the son got married, that the ex-wife told him the truth, but asked him not to show that he knew, out of concern for his father's feelings.

Despite the divorce, the ex-wife supported B financially, helping him open a store and pay for graduate school. The apartment he lived in before the murder was registered in her name.

“There was no conflict due to the divorce,” she said, calling suggestions of domestic strife “completely unfounded.”

Separately, according to an SBS report on Thursday, the suspect told two criminal profilers on July 22 that he committed the crime because his son had stopped providing financial support. “My son had been covering my living expenses, but that ended last year,” he reportedly said.

Containers filled with flammable thinner, left, and a metal pellet used in homemade ammunition, right, found at the Seoul residence of the suspect who fatally shot his son in Incheon on Sunday. Courtesy of Incheon Yeonsu Police

Police found 15 containers of flammable thinner, an ignition device and a timer at B’s residence in northern Seoul, and have sent the materials to the National Forensic Service for analysis. Additional firearms and pellets recovered from the scene and his rental vehicle are also under examination.

Investigators are considering filing additional charges of attempted murder or premeditated murder against B, based on evidence and witness testimony.

While discussions about revealing the suspect’s identity are ongoing, police are leaning toward withholding his name in accordance with the family’s request, citing concerns about secondary trauma to surviving relatives.

“As this involves serious trauma to the victims’ family, we cannot disclose further details of the investigation,” a police official said.

This article from the Hankook Ilbo, a sister publication of The Korea Times, is translated by a generative AI and edited by The Korea Times.