South Korea's bloodiest maniac has been caught, but he will not be held accountable for his crimes

The case of the Hwasong serial killer, over which the best detectives of South Korea have been fighting for 33 years, has finally been solved. The name of the most bloodthirsty beast of the late XX century is known and he is not hiding from justice. But no matter how much the authorities of the country want to bring the maniac to account, they will not be able to do anything to a criminal who deserves the most severe punishment.

From September 15, 1986 to April 3, 1991, the city of Hwaseong was shaken by a series of horrific murders that claimed the lives of 10 local residents. Women aged 14 to 71 were tied up, raped and brutally murdered. The maniac was immediately given the nickname "Hwasong killer" and for the next 30 years he became the most wanted criminal in the country.

In this case, it will not be possible to accuse law enforcement officers of inaction, since an unprecedented mobilization of forces and resources was carried out. No investigation in the history of South Korea has ever involved such a large number of employees. In total, the investigative actions took more than 2 thousand working days, while the officers interrogated 21 thousand people and took fingerprints from 20 thousand.

Police experts examine the crime scene

The investigation began in 1986, but it was possible to get the first more or less accurate portrait of the suspect only in 1988. The sketch was based on a description provided by the bus driver who drove the alleged killer.

The driver told the investigation that the man who interested them is about 20 years old, his height is about 165-170 cm, he wears a short sports haircut and has a pointed nose. The description turned out to be very general, as well as the portrait of the criminal compiled on its basis.

Police orientation to the killer with his sketch

The next few years were spent in blind police raids and interrogations of people who at least slightly fit the existing sketch. The work of the police in the Hwasong case is especially well shown in the film "Memories of a Murder", directed by Pon Joon-ho in 2003.

The film became the highest-grossing picture of the country and was seen by millions. The plot is based on the work of two investigators who are not particularly burdened with principles. They strive to catch the killer at any cost, so they undoubtedly use beatings, psychological pressure and real torture in their work.

A shot from the movie "Memories of murder"

The work of real detectives was greatly hampered by the low level of technical progress of those years. The first DNA tests to establish the identity of a criminal based on biological materials began to be used in the United States and Great Britain only in the late 90s. At the disposal of the Hwasong police were only fingerprints found in 1990, according to which it was not possible to find the killer through a file cabinet and a mass check of the population.

Search for evidence at the scene of another murder

Against the background of the protracted investigation, disagreements and intrigues began to arise among the investigators. The senior prosecutor of the Violent Crimes Division, Kim Jong-bin, resigned after a dispute about the killer's real blood type. There were traces of blood of the second group on the body of one of the victims and even a suspect was detained, but he had to be released due to lack of evidence.

In the early 2000s, technological progress allowed Korean police to analyze the saliva, semen and hair of a maniac left by him at crime scenes. But several years have passed since the last crime and precious time has been lost. The investigators decided that it was hopeless to look for a person with the second blood type, and Prosecutor Kim Jong-bin announced it openly in 2006.

A shot from the movie "Memories of murder"

After that, news about the detention of new suspects periodically appeared in the press, but the investigation stood still and nothing new could be learned about the killer. All these years, South Koreans have been worried about the killer living among them.

The anxiety came to an end on September 19, 2019, when the police officially announced that the main suspect had been discovered. DNA analysis technologies have shown that 56-year-old Lee Chun-jae is involved in three of the ten murders. His DNA samples turned up in the national police database and they perfectly matched the samples taken from the bodies of the three victims.

The most insulting thing for the police was that for many years they were looking for a person with the second blood type, and the killer turned out to have the first. Lee Chun-jae's data was in the database because the man has been serving a life sentence in prison since 1994. He got behind bars for a crime similar to the one under investigation — he raped and killed his daughter-in-law.

A shot from the movie "Memories of murder"

Lee Chun-jae attacked the girl shortly after his divorce when she came to visit him. To make it easier to cope with the victim, the killer mixed sleeping pills into her drink. When the victim was unconscious, Lee had sexual intercourse with her and then stabbed her to avoid punishment. But this time he was caught very quickly and soon he occupied his solitary cell in the maximum security prison of Busan.

The police are confident that the man is guilty of a series of murders in Hwaseong and continue to interrogate. The criminal actively denies his involvement in the atrocities of thirty years ago. But even his candid confession will not matter much, since the statute of limitations for the Hwasong murders expired in 2006. The police continue to work only to finally find out the truth and pay tribute to the victims of the serial killer.

Police Department officer Ban Ki-soo at a press conference

This statement was made by a police officer of Gyeonggi Nambu Province, Ban Ki-soo, at a press conference on the Hwasong case, which took place on September 19, 2019.

But the relatives of the victims still have no full guarantee that the maniac will spend the rest of his life behind bars. According to the laws of the country, life-convicted criminals have a good chance of being released after 20 years of imprisonment, if they have not had comments from the warders during this time.

Cases when serial killers remain at large for years or even evade responsibility sometimes happen, so the case of the Hwasong killer can hardly be considered unique.