A man in his 30s, who was arrested over the weekend for allegedly murdering a taxi driver involved in a car crash, additionally confessed to killing his former girlfriend, police said Tuesday.
The 32-year-old suspect living in Paju, just northwest of Seoul, stunned the local community on Sunday when police apprehended him on charges of killing the taxi driver in his 60s on Dec. 20 and having since hid his body in a closet at his ex-girlfriend’s house.
According to the police, the suspect had a collision with the victim’s taxi while driving drunk in Paju at around 11 p.m. on Dec. 20. He then lured the driver into the house on the pretext of paying compensation money before killing him with a blunt weapon and concealing his body to cover up his crime.
The suspect has additionally confessed to the murder of his former girlfriend and roommate in her 50s, who went missing last summer, police said.
He reportedly told police that he killed the woman in August and abandoned her body in a riverside in Paju.
The suspect has since lived in the deceased woman’s house, where the murder of the taxi driver allegedly occurred, police added.
The Ilsan Dongbu Police Station in charge of the case immediately began a search for the woman’s body in the area mentioned in the suspect’s confession.
The suspect is also accused of using the taxi driver’s credit cards to buy goods worth several tens of millions of won and take out a large loan. Police estimated the amount stolen from the driver’s credit cards for five days to reach about 50 million won (US$39,300).
His apprehension came after his current girlfriend found the taxi driver’s body at the house last Sunday. Around the same time, the taxi driver’s son called the police, saying he communicated with his father on Kakao Talk messenger but it felt like he was talking to a different person.
Source: Yonhap News Agency