People who have watched Korean crime films should know that unlike the tedious and protracted plots of Korean dramas, Korean movies are fast-paced and the plot is often produced by good works. Among them, there is no shortage of strong support from the South Korean government for the cultural industry, so that many talented young people can make high-quality works without restraint; on the other hand, it can be said that south Korea's vicious cases provide the most authentic material for movies. For example, today's film "Memories of Killing" is based on the real case - the Hwaseong serial murder case.
It is worth mentioning that these crime films have promoted the revision of Korean laws, and it can also be said that Korean crime films have improved Korean laws to a certain extent. With the broadcast of "Memories of Killing", it also led to a revision of South Korean law. The reason is that the film was released at the time of the longest retrospective period of the last case of this case, 15 years and only 3 years left, but this perverted murderer has not yet been arrested.
The number of people who watched the film reached as many as 5 million, accounting for one-ninth of the total population of South Korea at that time, which shows the great influence of the film. Later, people petitioned to extend the prosecution period for major homicides, and the matter was once again put on the agenda of South Korean law. So in 2007, the longest retrospective period in South Korea was extended to 20 years.
The South Korean government did not revoke the original task force because of the influence of the film, but permanently retained and sealed the evidence of the case. So how this case was solved, let's uncover the true face of this criminal suspect who is known as one of the three major unsolved cases in South Korea.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="3" > Hwaseong Nightmare</h1>
On September 15, 1986, a 71-year-old woman in Ann-ri, Hwaseong, Gyeonggi Province, South Korea, disappeared and was found dead in a wheat field the next day. The death of the deceased was cruel: the old woman's pants slipped off, her hands and feet were tied back in an X shape, her mouth was stuffed with socks, and the cause of death was strangulation. The police who handled the case at the time thought it was just an ordinary homicide, until the evening of October 25, when another 25-year-old woman disappeared on the way home from a blind date, and was later found at the bus stop, her hands and feet were also tied in an X-shape, and she was stabbed 4 times, but the cause of death was also strangled.
It turns out that such a vicious case in a small place has already aroused people's panic, and two cases at the same time are enough to cause panic among the people. According to the police investigation, it is likely that the two cases were committed by the same person, so that the quiet town has suddenly exploded. But this daring criminal suspect did not intend to put an end to the flag, but chose to defy the wind and commit the crime.
Two consecutive crimes were committed in December, 2 in 1987, 2 in 1988, 1 in 1990 and 1 in 1991. Since 1986, nightmares have hung over Hwaseong, and women dare not go out at will, nor can they wear red clothes when they go out. Because there is a saying in folklore that this devil only kills women dressed in red. Although this is only a folk saying, it can be seen that this person existed like a devil in the hearts of the people at that time.
The most terrifying thing is this murderous demon, from the top to the seventy-year-old woman down to the 8-year-old child. After this demon committed an atrocity, he would brutally kill the victim, only the victim of the 9th case escaped, and she became the only survivor of the Hwaseong murder. However, because the girl was overly frightened at that time, she could only describe the details of this person's appearance such as a single eyelid.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="5" > a cat-and-mouse contest</h1>
And the murderer's methods of crime are constantly evolving: he usually uses local materials to find the tools of the crime from the victim, sometimes the stockings are sometimes underwear, and the only constant is the X-shaped binding of his hands and feet. At the same time, the suspect showed the characteristics of boldness and meticulousness, especially his crime scene was very clean.
At the same time, his methods are becoming more and more terrible, he will stuff foreign objects into the victim's lower body, sometimes leftover peaches, sometimes forks and spoons. It can be seen that he is extremely hostile to women, which makes him have no fixed perpetrators, which also makes all the families in Hwaseong unrest.
The police also invested a total of 2.05 million police forces, searched 20,000 suspects, and identified 180 hairs and 40,116 fingerprints, which can be said to be unique in South Korean history. Many investigations were carried out, and only the eighth case was solved.
After the police investigation at that time, it was determined that the eighth case had nothing to do with the previous 7 cases, but was only a simple sporadic case. The police also identified the suspect Yin Mou through a pubic hair left at the scene. Yin was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1990. So why count this one, don't worry we'll talk about it later.
In 2006, after the prosecution period for the last case, He Shengjun, then head of the Hwaseong Homicide Investigation Team, published a letter to the criminals in a monthly magazine, which caused a sensation. At the end of the letter, Leader He wrote, "You must not die before me, I know you, and I will definitely catch you." ”
This leader of the Ho group is the prototype of the criminal police officer Park Doo-wan in "Memories of Killing", and he later wrote a book "Hwaseong is not over" based on his investigation diary, hoping that the public will be able to collect more clues to solve the case after learning about the case. Unfortunately, this case has not been solved. So there is the last scene in the movie later, the helpless but determined eyes of the policeman Park Doo-wan looking at the camera have also become the heart of the Korean people.
Although the police did not give up, the case was like a mud cow into the sea, and the suspect disappeared without a trace. Fortunately, after 1991, the murderer did not commit another crime, and with the broadcast of the movie, the case was restarted again. However, this wait was more than ten years, until 33 years after the crime.
In August 2019, South Korean police suddenly announced that the suspect in the Hwaseong serial murder case had been arrested. Police said that after DNA comparison, they found that three sets of DNA from the Hwaseong murder case matched the DNA of one detainee. Police interrogated the detainee, Lee Chun-jae, on Aug. 19, but denied that the Hwaseong serial rape and murder case was related to him. However, the comparison of the three sets of DNA could not be wrong, and the police determined that the person was suspected of committing a major crime, so the police requested foreign assistance: experts in criminal psychology were called to participate in the interrogation.
This is not the first time that the police have requested foreign assistance in this case, as early as the previous investigation, the police officially launched the scientific identification system, and the introduction of DNA was also introduced from the ninth and tenth cases in this series of cases. After 10 rounds of interrogation and psychological warfare, Lee Chun-jae finally confessed: he confessed to 14 homicides and 9 rapes, with a total of 23 victims. The number of serial killings in Hwaseong has risen from 10 to 14.
In 2019, the police determined that the number of cases in 1987 rose to 3, 1 in 1989, and from 2 to 4 in 1991. The additional cases were not identified as the same criminal suspect at the time because of their different modus operandi. It can be seen from here that there is still a huge difference between Li Chunzai and the typical serial murderer. Typical serial murder cases have specific criminal methods and specific groups of victims, but Li Chunzai is more casual. This can also be seen in Li Chunzai's contempt for human nature.
In fact, the most controversial case is the eighth case, because the criminal suspect at the time, Yin Mou, did not admit guilt at first, and then suddenly admitted to the crime. Later, when Yin was released from prison in 2010, a reporter interviewed Yin that year, and he said, "I didn't do anything, but I didn't have money, and I could only accept the defense of state-owned lawyers." ”
According to Korean media reports, Lee Chun-jae also admitted to the case this time, and he said the incident at that time: On September 16, 1988, when Lee Chun-jae passed by the house, he found that there was no locked door, and saw a little girl sleeping in the house, so he started. After this matter was exposed, it also caused the South Korean people to be extremely distrustful of the police, and the police apologized to Yin for this matter. But Yin spent a full 20 years in prison.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="7" > prisoner Li Chunzai</h1>
Why didn't the police find the suspect at the time? It is very simple because the test materials extracted at the crime scene at that time determined that the suspect was B blood, and Li Chunzai was O blood. According to police records, In the sixth case, Li Chunzai was once listed as a suspect and was questioned by the police, but was later released. Due to the limitations of the technology at that time, it was impossible to uniformly identify the bodily fluids at the scene and Li Chunzai's bodily fluids. Later, coupled with the different blood types, Li Chunzai was acquitted.
So why is Li Chunzai now convicted again under different blood types? According to the police, because of the large number of materials tested at that time, they may have been contaminated, resulting in inaccurate test results. The anastomosis rate of the DNA this time is 99.99%, and the three specimens are successfully matched, so there is no possibility of error. However, because of this small mistake, the police wasted a lot of police and material resources, and more women were killed in the back, and at the same time, a young man was unjustly imprisoned.
Although the Hwaseong case has passed the statute of limitations, Lee Chun-jae will not be released because he has been sentenced to life imprisonment before that. Since he was identified as the perpetrator of the Hwaseong serial murders, the prison authorities have held him in solitary confinement. And the reason for his imprisonment is even more frightening.
On January 15, 1994, a woman who had been missing for two days was found in Cheongju, Chungcheongbuk-do, South Korea, and her body was abandoned in the warehouse of a hardware store. Later, during the investigation, the police found that the woman's brother-in-law, Li Chunzai, was suspected of committing a major crime, so the victim's blood was found in her home.
After inquiry, it was learned that Li Chunzai had a conflict with his wife, who ran away from home and held a grudge against him. In order to vent his anger, he called his sister-in-law and said that he wanted her to persuade Li's wife. After the sister-in-law came to the house, she added sleeping pills to the juice she drank, and raped the woman after she fell asleep. Afraid of being discovered, he killed his wife and sister when they were unconscious. The crime occurred in Cheongju, so the police did not think of the Hwaseong murder.
In this way, Lee Chun-jae was sentenced to death by a South Korean court in the first instance, and the sentence was changed to life imprisonment in the second instance. Because the court of second instance found that Li was not deliberately murdered, many people thought that this trial was very problematic. But it is precisely because of such a change in judgment that this Hwaseong serial murder case has a turnaround, and everyone can directly attack the truth.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="9" > the formation and revelation of demons</h1>
How did Li Chunzai become a demon? According to Lee Chun-jae's own account, he was raped by a neighbor's sister in his childhood, causing him to hate women. But many people thought it was just an excuse for him, and later experts in criminal psychology analyzed Li Chunzai. The following is the process and conclusion of the expert investigation
Psychology experts asked Lee Chun-jae about the '89 case: a second-grade elementary school student, Jin Mou, disappeared and was later found to have been killed by the police. Jin became the smallest victim of the Hwaseong serial murder case. And Li Chunzai said that because he did not want to live at that time, he took a jump rope up the mountain and prepared to commit suicide. Later, he happened to meet Jin, and he suddenly had evil thoughts and killed Jin.
According to the analysis of psychological experts, Jin Mou is a typical antisocial personality, that is to say, Li Chunzai does not have the emotions that normal people have. The shadow of his childhood also accounts for part of the reason, but his own emotional disorder is also an important reason for his transformation into a murderous demon. So what can we learn from the Li Chunzai case?
The reason the case took 34 years to be solved is largely due to the negligence of the South Korean police. Although the scientific and technological means at that time were not developed, because the South Korean police introduced a lot of advanced technology in this case, this did not cover up the malfeasance of the South Korean economy. The inaction of the South Korean police not only caused the samples sent for examination to be contaminated, resulting in incorrect evidence display and delaying the time to solve the case, but also created an unjust, false and wrongly decided case because of violent interrogation.
According to the report of the Korean media MBC: After the body of the least victim of this case, Jin Mou, was found, the police did not investigate at the first time, but concealed the discovery of Jin Mou's body. Until the defendant cracked the case in 2019, Jin's parents still did not know anything about the whereabouts of their daughter. When the reporter went to interview Jin's father, the father always said that he still hoped that the police would tell them where his daughter was, and they wanted to do something for his daughter.
It is hard to imagine that this is the way the South Korean police handled the case, not only making a series of mistakes in handling the case, but also perfunctory to the victim's family. Regrettably, both the policeman who committed dereliction of duty and the heinous Li Chunzai have already passed the retrospective period of the case. Now the South Korean police are worried about how to pursue Lee Chun-jae's crimes, so that he must be punished for his crimes.
Later, some experts said that Li Chunzai's guilt was not so difficult. Since 2015, South Korea has abolished the retroactive period of the death penalty. Lee Chun-jae was already in the group in 1994, and if the South Korean police used the delay in retroactive statute of limitations as a reason to indict Lee Chun-jae on a new charge. I think this is the only thing the South Korean police can do for the victims of this case to comfort their spirits in heaven.