33-Year-Old Ex-Convict Allegedly Murdered 20 Women, Rich Elderly


By Na Jeong-ju
Staff Reporter

Police on Sunday said they have captured a serial killer suspected of murdering at least 20 people in Seoul and other areas from September last year.

The suspect, identified as Yoo Young-chul, admitted he killed 11 women and buried them in the mountains near Yonsei University in Seoul, police said.

Police recovered the remains of their bodies, which had been cut into pieces before being buried.

Yoo, 33, also confessed to eight other killings, according to the police. He told them that he committed the premeditated crimes out of blind hatred and hostility toward women and rich people.

Police are expanding the investigation after securing testimony from Yoo that he had committed more murders in Pusan and Inchon.

Yoo, an epilepsy patient, was initially arrested Thursday on charges of beating a woman he had paid for sex, but fled during questioning. Police didn’t know whether he committed murders when they first detained him. He was recaptured on Friday at the Yongdungpo subway station and confessed to the murders, police said. Yoo was carrying a fake police identification card and handcuffs for his crimes.

The killing spree began on Sept. 24 last year when he murdered a wealthy couple in Sinsa-dong, southern Seoul. On Oct. 9, he also killed three members of a family in Chongno-gu, Seoul.

The following month, after killing a 71-year-old man in Kangnam-gu, he moved to Hyehwa-dong, Seoul, and murdered an 87-year-old luxury home owner and a female housekeeper. Police said he also set the house on fire to destroy evidence.

Most of the crimes were committed around noon and in the afternoon when young people were at work and only the elderly were at home. Yoo was found to have used hammers and knives for the homicides.

His targets were mostly wealthy people and women. Yoo, who divorced in 2002 while he was in prison, harbored hatred toward the wealthy and women, police said.

Criminal experts said it seemed that Yoo, an ex-convict, intended to kill innocent people to vent his anger over being a social outcast. He also thought he would die soon because his father died of epilepsy and his elder brother died at age 32 from the same illness. He also had a medical history of mental disorders.

Police said Yoo told them he had once thought of killing his former wife but dropped the idea in consideration of his 11-year-old son, opting instead for women working in the sex trade as his targets. They also said he wanted to kill people in an affluent neighborhood in Seoul, attributing his miserable condition and his bad luck to wealthy people and women.

He was first jailed as a high school student at age 18. Since then, he has served a combined 11 years in prison on charges of fraud, violence and other crimes.

Police said they traced him based on footprints left at a crime scene and records on closed circuit TV. As they got close to apprehending him, he went underground and targeted prostitutes to continue the killings.