This article is by Cho Jung-woo and read by an artificial voice.
[KOREAN CRIME FILES #9]
Behind the glitz and glamour seen in pop culture, Korea's grimmest and most harrowing crime stories, some more well-known than others, continue to haunt society today. The Korea JoongAng Daily takes a deep dive into some of these stories, sharing a glimpse into the darker side of society as well as the most up-to-date known facts. - Ed.
It was supposed to be a merry Christmas Day in 2007 for 8-year-old Woo Ye-seul and 10-year-old Lee Hye-jin, two neighborhood friends from Anyang, Gyeonggi. After Christmas service that afternoon, the girls left church excitedly to buy small gifts for their families. They were often seen playing together at nearby playgrounds, and that day, too, they spent time at one before leaving together around 4 p.m.
That was the last time they were seen, captured briefly on CCTV.
Neither girl owned a cell phone, and when they failed to return home that evening, their parents waited in growing dread. At midnight, they reported them missing. The police launched an investigation but asked the media not to report on it publicly, fearing it might involve kidnapping.
Five days later, with no trace of the children, the police went public. They searched nearby mountains and issued an Amber Alert. Days turned into weeks, then months.
On March 11, 2008 - 77 days after the girls vanished - a man on reserve army training found body parts on a mountain in Suwon, Gyeonggi. DNA tests confirmed the remains belonged to 10-year-old Lee. Her body had been cut into ten pieces and buried about 30 centimeters (11 inches) underground.
The discovery led police to 38-year-old Jeong Seong-hyeon, a man living alone in the same neighborhood.
Jeong initially denied the charges. But under questioning, he confessed: he had sexually assaulted, murdered, dismembered and disposed of the bodies of the two girls. Later, parts of Woo's body were found along a stream in Siheung, Gyeonggi.
A kind, quiet neighbor
To many, Jeong's arrest came as a shock.
"He was rather good-looking," recalled a restaurant owner from the area. "It's hard to believe someone like him could kill."
Jeong lived only a few hundred meters away from the two girls. He kept to himself, working as a computer repairman by day and a substitute driver at night.
"Given the way the bodies were dismembered and transported using a vehicle, we suspected the culprit was a man living alone," said Park Jong-hwan, then-chief of the Anyang Police Precinct, during a press briefing. "We focused our investigation on about 680 single men living in the 6th and 8th districts of Anyang."
Police soon discovered that Jeong had rented a car on Dec. 25, 2007 - the day of the disappearance - and returned it the next day. Blood traces were found in the trunk. A DNA test said the traces were from Woo and Lee.
On March 18, Jeong was arrested at his mother's house in Boryeong, South Chungcheong.
At first, Jeong gave conflicting statements. He claimed he had accidentally run over the girls with his car. Then he said he killed them when they resisted his attempts to pat them on the head. The next day, his story changed again: He said he had merely touched their shoulders, but when they protested, he panicked, and, afraid they would tell their parents, killed them.
The confession
According to police, Jeong had a troubled childhood.
"After his parents divorced when he was in middle school, he grew up under a stepmother and developed a deep fear of abandonment," said the Anyang police chief.
"He said he had dated three women, hoping to marry, but after being rejected by women he loved, he developed feelings of contempt and hatred toward women and society."
Jeong told police he had endured abuse from his father as a child and bullying from classmates, which made him drop out of high school. In adulthood, he said, he developed resentment toward women after repeated rejections - a hatred that eventually drove him to p...
