Lee Choon-jae

Lee Choon-jae, also known as the Hwaseong Murderer, is a South Korean serial killer known for committing the Hwaseong serial murders. Between 1986 and 1994, Lee murdered fifteen women and girls in addition to committing numerous sexual assaults, predominantly in Hwaseong, Gyeonggi Province, and the surrounding areas. The murders, which remained unsolved for thirty years, are considered to be the most infamous in modern South Korean history and were the inspiration for the film Memories of Murder.
Lee was sentenced to life imprisonment with the possibility of parole after twenty years for killing his sister-in-law in 1994, but despite DNA evidence and his confession to the other murders in 2019, he could not be prosecuted for them because the statute of limitations had expired.

Early life

Lee Choon-jae was born in Hwaseong, Gyeonggi Province, on 31 January 1963. According to his mother, he had a good education and worked well with others. Lee had a younger brother who drowned in his childhood, an incident which reportedly traumatized him.
After graduating from high school in February 1983, Lee joined the Republic of Korea Army and served as a tank driver until his discharge in January 1986. In 1990 he began working for a construction company as an unlicensed crane operator in the Cheongpa-dong neighbourhood of Seoul. The following year, Lee was employed as a crane operator for a company in Cheongwon, North Chungcheong Province, which he ultimately quit in March 1993. In April 1992, Lee married an administrator and had a son with her. However, Lee was a violent alcoholic who often physically abused his family.
On 26 September 1989, Lee broke into a house in Suwon and was discovered by the landlord. He was sentenced by the Suwon District Court to one year and six months' imprisonment in the first trial in February 1990 for the charges of robbery and assault. After the first trial, Lee filed an appeal, claiming that he was beaten by an unknown young man and entered the victim's house while being chased. In the second trial, the court suspended Lee's sentence to two years' probation. He was released in April 1990.

Hwaseong serial murders

For a period of four years and seven months, between 15 September 1986 and 3 April 1991, Lee committed a series of rapes and murders in and around Hwaseong. The victims, all women, were found bound, gagged, raped and in most cases strangled to death with their own clothes, such as pantyhose or socks. The murders sparked the largest criminal case in South Korean history, with over 2million man-days spent on investigation and over 21,000 suspects investigated. The murders remained unsolved for thirty years until Lee was identified as a suspect in 2019. He confessed to four undisclosed murders not originally included in the original list of crimes and all ten serial murders, including a case previously determined to be a copycat crime.

Background

On 13 September 1986, Lee Wan-im disappeared while returning home after visiting her daughter. Her body was found in a pasture on 19 September, four days following her murder. A month later, on 20 October, Park Hyun-sook disappeared after getting off the bus while returning home from Songtan. Her body was found on 23 October in a canal. Two months later on 12 December, Kwon Jung-bon disappeared in front of her house. Her body was found four months later on 23 April 1987 on an embankment. Seven more murders followed over the following years. The last murder was estimated to have taken place around 21:00 on 3 April 1991. Kwon Soon-sang was discovered raped and strangled with pantyhose on a hill.

Sister-in-law's murder and arrest

After his wife left him in December 1993, Lee invited his eighteen-year-old sister-in-law to his residence, then proceeded to drug, rape and kill her on 13 January 1994. According to the original investigator, Lee went to his father-in-law offering help in the search for the missing girl, and both reported that she might have been abducted. Lee was arrested on 18 January after repeated questioning where he later asked, "How many years do you serve in prison for rape and murder?" Lee denied any responsibility and the court overturned his confession, stating that he made a false statement because of police coercion. However, Lee was convicted and sentenced to death in May 1994, a conviction that was upheld in September of the same year. The Supreme Court of Korea reviewed the case in 1995, and Lee's death sentence was reduced to life imprisonment, with the possibility of parole after twenty years.

Investigation

The Hwaseong serial murders were the first identifiable string of murders in South Korea with a similar modus operandi. Investigators spent 2million man-days on the case. The total number of suspects also grew, eventually reaching a total count of 21,280 individuals. In addition, 40,116 individuals had their fingerprints taken, and 570 DNA samples and 180 hair samples were analyzed.
The first five murders happened within a 6 km radius of Hwaseong, prompting police to spread out in teams of two, positioned every 100 meters, but the next killing happened where there was no police presence. During the investigation, rumors that the killer targeted women wearing red clothes on rainy days spread, leading some female police officers to wear red clothes in an attempt to lure the killer into a trap.
A suspect sketch was drawn based on the memory of a bus driver and bus conductor who witnessed a man boarding their bus shortly after the seventh murder on 7 September 1988. The characteristics of the suspect, which were described by the bus driver, were similar to the descriptions given by survivors who had been sexually assaulted. According to survivors, the perpetrator was a thin-framed man in his mid-twenties, with a height of 165 to 170 centimeters, short cut sporty-type hair, no double eyelids and a sharp nose. In addition, he was described as having soft hands. Police also stated that the suspect was blood type B, but in 2019 police acknowledged that this was likely inaccurate, because Lee had blood type O. A survivor of the murders, Lee Geum-ran, was attacked by Lee in late 1986 and she described him as skinny, with a low voice.
On July 27, 1989, Yoon Sung-yeo was arrested for the murder of the eighth victim, fourteen-year-old Park Sang-hee. Yoon admitted guilt during questioning, and according to a 1989 report written by an expert at the National Forensic Service, tests of pubic hair samples found at the scene returned a 40% match with Yoon's. This case was determined to be a copycat crime, and Yoon was sentenced to life imprisonment. Reports state that at least four individuals, deemed as possible suspects, took their own lives in the 1990s after being investigated and allegedly abused by police.

Public reaction

The release of the film Memories of Murder, which was partially inspired by the Hwaseong serial murders, sparked renewed interest in the case. The murder of a female college student in Hwaseong the following year also sparked fears that the killer had returned. The murders made headlines again as the statute of limitations for the most recent victims was due to expire on 2 April 2006.
At the time of the killings, there was a fifteen-year statute of limitations for first-degree murder. This was increased to twenty-five years in 2007, and finally lifted in 2015, but it was not retroactive. However, evidence and police records were kept due to the significance of the case.

Identification and confession

On September 18, 2019, police announced that Lee had been identified as a suspect in the Hwaseong serial murders. He was identified after DNA from the underwear of one of the victims was matched with his, and subsequent DNA testing linked him to four of the other unsolved murders. At the time he was identified, Lee was already serving a life sentence at a prison in Busan for the rape and murder of his sister-in-law. He initially denied any involvement in the serial murders, but on 2 October police announced that he had confessed to killing fourteen people, including all ten victims in the original investigation, which includes the case previously considered to be a copycat crime, and four others. Two of those other murders happened in Hwaseong but had not previously been attributed to Lee, and two happened in Cheongju. As of October 2019, details about those four victims have not been released. In addition to the murders, Lee also confessed to more than thirty rapes and attempted rapes.
On 15 November 2019, police announced that they had reached a provisional conclusion that Lee was responsible for all ten serial murders. Police expressed that Lee had weak self-esteem due to his introverted personality but experienced a sense of accomplishment and self-reliance for the first time during his military service, which led him to commit sex crimes to express his frustration caused by his monotonous life following his discharge. The provincial police chief stated that Lee displayed psychopathic tendencies by being unable to empathize with the victims' suffering and continuously showing off his crimes.
On 2 July 2020, police confirmed that Lee committed fourteen murders and nine rapes in relation to the Hwaseong serial murders with the motive of relieving his sexual desire, closing the case thirty-three years after the first killing. On 2 November 2020, Lee appeared in court as a witness for the eighth murder re-trial, where he publicly confessed to committing fourteen murders in relation to the Hwaseong serial murders and thirty sex crimes, which led to Yoon being acquitted. Lee remained in prison serving his life sentence. Lee also expressed that he had no intention of seeking parole and release, as he did not want to face the public condemnation for his crime like notorious child rapist Cho Doo-soon, whose release after serving his twelve-year jail term led to widespread public outrage.

Wrongful conviction of Yoon Sung-yeo

After being sentenced to life imprisonment, Yoon Sung-yeo appealed his conviction on the grounds that police coerced him into giving false confessions through torture. His appeal was denied and he served over nineteen years in prison before being released on parole in 2009.
Yoon filed for a re-trial of his case on 13 November 2019, following news reports that Lee had confessed to all ten of the Hwaseong serial murders. Two days later, police announced that they had reached a provisional conclusion that Lee was responsible for the murder for which Yoon was convicted. Police said Lee's confession in the eighth murder "elaborately and coherently" described both the scene and the victim. This raised concerns Yoon had been the victim of a miscarriage of justice, with the district prosecutors' office confirming that Yoon endured cruel treatment by police at the time of his arrest and that the National Forensic Service report had been fraudulently written. In December 2019, the Gyeonggi South Provincial Police Agency booked and charged eight of the original investigators with abuse of power and illegal detention for allegedly physically abusing Yoon when he was a suspect, forcing him to make a false confession and falsifying investigative documents.
The court accepted Yoon's plea for a re-trial in January 2020. The final court hearing was held on 2 November 2020, where Lee stood as a witness confessing to the murder and describing the crime scene. Yoon was acquitted of murder on 17 December, after the re-trial court accepted that he was innocent and found Lee guilty despite the expiration of the statute of limitations.

List of known victims

The first 10 murders were part of the Hwaseong serial murders.

Crime	Date and time of crime	Date and time of discovery	Victim and age	Location	Remarks
1	September 15, 1986 06:20	September 19, 1986 14:00	Lee Wan-im, 71	Taean-eup, Annyeong-ri, pasture	Elder murdered while returning home after visiting her daughter. Evidence found: Strangled by hand, negative semen reaction
2	October 20, 1986 22:00	October 23, 1986 14:50	Park Hyun-sook, 25	Taean-eup, Jinan-ri, canal	Murdered after getting off the bus while returning home from Songtan after meeting with a prospective marriage partner. Evidence found: Strangled by hand, semen
3	December 12, 1986 23:00	April 23, 1987 14:00	Kwon Jung-bon, 25	Taean-eup, Annyeong-ri, embankment	Housewife murdered in front of her house. Evidence found: Strangled by stockings, gagged with her stockings, panties on the face, semen
4	December 14, 1986 23:00	December 21, 1986 12:30	Lee Kye-sook, 23	Jeongnam-myeon, Gwanhang-ri, ridge between rice fields	Murdered after getting off the bus while returning home after meeting with a prospective marriage partner. Evidence found: Hands tied, strangled and violated by an umbrella, girdle covering her face, semen
5	January 10, 1987 20:50	January 11, 1987 13:00	Hong Jin-young, 19	Taean-eup, Hwanggye-ri, rice paddy	High school girl murdered after getting off the bus while returning home. Evidence found: Hands tied, gagged with her socks, strangled, semen
6	May 2, 1987 23:00	May 9, 1987 15:00	Park Eun-joo, 29	Taean-eup, Jinan-ri, hill	Housewife murdered while going to give her husband an umbrella. Evidence found: strangled, semen
7	September 7, 1987 21:30	September 8, 1987 09:30	Ahn Gi-soon, 54	Paltan-myeon, Gajae-ri, canal	Housewife murdered after getting off the bus while returning home. Evidence found: Hands tied, gagged with her socks and handkerchief, strangled, peach slices, semen
8	September 16, 1988 02:00	September 16, 1988 06:50	Park Sang-hee, 14	Taean-eup, Jinan-ri, house	Middle school girl murdered while sleeping in her room. Initially determined to be a copycat crime perpetrated by 22-year-old Yoon Sung-yeo, who served 19.5 years in jail before being released on parole in 2009. However, after Lee's confession in 2019, police reached a provisional conclusion that Lee was indeed the killer. Yoon filed for a re-trial on 13 November 2019.
9	November 15, 1990 18:30	November 16, 1990 09:50	Kim Mi-jung, 14	Taean-eup, Byeongjeom-dong, hill	Middle school girl murdered while returning home. Evidence found: Hands and feet tied, strangled, gagged with her bra, ballpoint pen, fork, spoon and razor blade, semen
10	April 3, 1991 21:00	April 4, 1991 09:30	Kwon Soon-sang, 69	Dongtan-myeon, Bansong-ri, hill	Elder murdered after getting off the bus while returning home. Evidence found: Strangled, two footprint marks, semen
11	December 24, 1987	January 4, 1988	Kim Mi-soon, 18	Hwaseong
12	July 7, 1989	N/A	Kim Hyun-jung, 8	Hwaseong
13	January 26, 1991	January 27, 1991	Park Mi-hwa, 17	Hwaseong
14	March 7, 1991	March 7, 1991	Kim Hong-bun, 27	Cheongju, North Chungcheong Province
15	January 13, 1994	January 15, 1994	Lee's sister-in-law, 18	Bokdae-dong, Cheongju, North Chungcheong Province	Lee was sentenced to death for rape and murder. Reduced to life imprisonment by the Supreme Court.

In popular culture

Several films and television shows were based on the Hwaseong serial murders:Memories of Murder Confession of Murder Gap-dong Signal Tunnel Criminal Minds Partners for Justice Signal Unknown Number Flower of Evil

''Taxi Driver''