Advertisement
South Korea
AsiaEast Asia

South Korean police apologise over botched ‘Hwaseong murders’ serial killer case

  • Lee Chun-jae raped and murdered 10 women in rural parts of Hwaseong, south of Seoul, over a five-year period from 1986
  • But the botched investigation led to a man being wrongfully convicted of one of the killings and served 20 years in jail

Reading Time:2 minutes
Why you can trust SCMP
0
Provincial police chief Bae Yong-ju bows as he apologises for a botched, decades-long murder investigation that saw an innocent man jailed for 20 years for crimes committed by South Korea's most notorious serial killer Lee Chun-jae. Photo: AFP
Agence France-Presse
South Korea’s most notorious serial killer murdered 15 women, police said on Thursday, as they apologised for a botched, decades-long investigation that saw an innocent man jailed for 20 years.

Lee Chun-jae raped and murdered 10 women in rural parts of Hwaseong, south of Seoul, over a five-year period from 1986, police said.

At the time a record number of police officers for a single case were mobilised to try to find the killer, investigating some 21,000 individuals and comparing the fingerprints of around 20,000 more without success.

The inquiry inspired Oscar-winning South Korean filmmaker Bong Joon-ho’s 2003 box office hit Memories of Murder.

Lee, 57, was only identified as a suspect last year – more than 30 years after killing his first victim – using the latest forensic techniques to retrieve DNA from long-past crimes.

Under questioning, he had admitted all 10 Hwaseong murders, as well as four others including an eight-year-old girl, police said, adding he also raped nine other women.

Advertisement