Seoulscapade

This sculpture, one of the many scattered around Seoul’s Olympic Park, struck me as appropriate for the theme of this post, which is on murder and mayhem. I’ll mainly concentrate on the all-too-fashionable subject of serial killers, as there’s one on the loose in Seoul at the moment.

He struck last year in locations around south-western Seoul, some close to where my girlfriend was living at the time. The first two victims survived. One of them, a high school girl, was walking home from a subway station when a guy approached and without a word began stabbing her. There was no noise, nothing said. It was random. The man then vanished. The girl received stab wounds to her breasts and inner thighs. A few months later a fourth victim was attacked in a large park, one of whose entrances is about 200 metres from that apartment my girlfriend was living in. This latest victim only survived for a short period; but she did manage to give a description and details of what happened. Police surmised that the perpetrator was a local with intimate knowledge of the area, given how he always slipped away with ease.

After these events, women everywhere began taking precautions. There was a marked increase in police patrols, as I could not fail to notice, in that park I mentioned near my girlfriend’s place. And there was something else; an unnerving new dimension to the crimes emerged with the revelation of patterns to them. A number of the murders occurred on rainy nights, frequently on a Thursday, and often during the early hours of the morning. (My guess was a taxi driver.) There were also rumours that the victims had been wearing red when they were attacked.

Now, it wasn’t just the patterns that were disturbing, it was the sense of familiarity that accompanied them. Rumours filled with dark speculation began to spread, for these patterns recalled the modus operandi of a killer from an earlier time in Seoul’s history. Had he returned?

In the 1980s, there was a serial killer at large in the countryside just south of Seoul, an area populated with little farming villages, irrigation ditches and grassy fields. It was a dramatic case, and it became notorious because the killer has never been caught. I’d heard about it soon after getting here, though where I cannot remember. It could have been from a number of sources because occasionally the media refers to it. It’s one of those mysterious cases that insinuates itself into a generation’s psyche and becomes an urban legend. It could have been that I learnt about it from reading a snippet concerning a movie called Memories of Murder, which was based on the case. The movie was made a few years ago and I managed to see it near the end of last year. I have to say I was tremendously impressed.

The film, directed by Bong Jun-ho, received critical praise when it was released in 2003. With its high level of sophistication and polish, it is a testimony to the Korean film industry’s coming of age. What’s great about it are the subtle details and the black humour; it isn’t “Hollywood,” so it’s without the sensationalism or flash-over-substance that big money tends to generate, and although it does contain a dramatic denouement, that’s more about mental fracturing than gunplay. The film shows you the cops clumsily doing their best to frame someone; you see them torturing people to extract information; you see them fighting amongst themselves as they start cracking under the strain. In fact, it’s all about the cops and their deterioration in the face of failure, rather than the serial killer. You don’t really see the psychopath—after all, as I said, he was never caught.

One of the real detectives who investigated this case was interviewed in retirement. For him, the time was, as he described it, a season in hell. The toll of young women was mounting; there was no evidence, except for clues like the murders occurring on rainy nights, like a mournful song requested over the radio before they occurred, like the women who were targeted having worn red. The pressures were mounting and no progress was being made. Then everything stopped—no more killings, no substantial clues, just 9 dead women from 1986 to 1991. Time passed, people moved on, investigators retired.

A number of people suspected in the case died, too, some were involved in accidents and some committed suicide. It is unclear how many of these can be put down to ‘collateral damage’ due to the case. The police had interviewed around 3000 people in the course of investigations, freely exercising torture to gain information or confessions. This actually left a number of innocent individuals with mental problems.

Despite such extreme measures, the killer remains at large and may be still active. Not so long ago, a girl was killed in the same area and it appears to have been done by the same person or perhaps a copycat. Investigations into this last incident and two previous to it remain open. Investigations into the earlier unsolved killings are closed; you see, they’ve passed a 15 year time limit for resolution that is required here.

If there was a link between this 1980s case and last year’s south-western Seoul case, it was that efforts in both were characterized by a lack of progress, not that the same killer was involved. Police  soon quashed rumours about it being same killer, but that wasn’t much of a relief, of course, because it meant that there were now definitely two serial killers at large.

Meanwhile, the number of victims credited to this new, south-western Seoul killer had risen to six. Then, suddenly, all over the news there were images of a serial killer they had caught, a yellow blanket about his shoulders, a cap and face mask obscuring his features; flashes from photographers reminded you of a movie star’s entrance at an award night. It was a sensation. So they finally caught up with him, I thought. Well, you can image my surprise when I learned that this was, in fact, another serial killer I hadn’t even heard about!

The story behind this guy is astounding. He’d been even busier than the other two psychos put together, notching up 26 victims—something of a disappointment for him because he was aiming for 100. He put forward the default excuse of a troubled background (deaths in the family due to epilepsy, which he also suffered, a history of mental disturbances, blah, blah). Add to that his hatred of the rich, whom he blamed for all of his misfortune. Add to that a divorce and a later phone-sex girl’s rejection of his marriage proposal. Add to that a number of years in and out of prison. Hey presto: a social outcast primed to explode. He spared his ex-wife from slaughter in consideration of his son—most thoughtful. Instead, killing rich old ladies and prostitutes would be, according to his twisted logic, an appropriate revenge against a world that clearly had done him wrong.

It wasn’t hard to go out and teach the world a lesson, either. Old rich people were at home alone during the day and he could strike with impunity. For prostitutes, he’d call to have a girl sent over to his place or to a hotel, and if there was something about her that rubbed him the wrong way (excuse the pun), he’d bludgeon her to death. So it went on.

His water bill alone was approximating the total rental on some properties. Why? Well, you have to get rid of the body, and in such a crowded metropolis as Seoul that’s not easy. The usual method, therefore, is to cut it up, and that’s what he’d do in his bathroom, naturally, with the water running to wash away the blood and gore. Apparently, he’d play traditional victory songs while performing this rite (well in keeping with his nutter status). Then he’d bury the pieces in one of the inner city’s many wooded hill areas.

Now, this guy would often ring the same agency to get prostitutes. So, in the course of time, it struck the agency’s owner that catering to this client was bad for business. His girls were failing to return; he was losing income; he continually had to replace staff–it was most curious. Yet he didn’t jump to any hasty conclusions, except to put his girls’ disappearances down to their moving on. Besides, his kind of business is full of itinerants; and, in any case, it wasn’t up to him to ponder life’s mysteries, nor to care much about what happened to the girls in his charge. But he was an astute businessman, to give him credit, and so he stopped sending girls to the psycho for good measure. The psycho, undeterred, simply called another agency.

It’s curious how people can just go missing or crimes like this go undetected for so long. I’m sure it’s partly due to that big city paradox: the more people there are, the less you are noticed. This is compounded by the Korean tendency to internalize, to discretely look the other way or ignore things. In situations where something is uncomfortable, a minor fracas, for example, it seems that reality is selectively obscured or essentially just-isn’t-happening in the minds of many. Believe me, I’ve been there and witnessed something just not happen, according to those around me. I presume things are different when something really serious occurs.

At different locations, like bus stations, I’ve noticed sun-faded posters sticky taped to windows displaying the pictures of about 50 children. It was what I presumed, but I still queried my girlfriend about it. Yes, they were all missing kids; a number of them barely 2 years old, it seemed. I was taken aback. Shouldn’t this have prompted a national outcry? Think of Australia, where just one kid goes missing and the next thing you know 100s of volunteers are out combing bushland or the suburbs. It makes the evening news. That doesn’t seem to happen here. I questioned how these kids went missing. Who knows? Some disappeared from parks apparently. What’s the story behind all of the others? Surely there was not an adoptee shortfall that called for kidnappings, for South Korea used to be renowned worldwide as a steady suppler of abandoned children. So what happened to those poster kids? I don’t know.

I guess one just has to keep in mind that this is a country with one of the world’s highest population densities. People will go missing, people will be killed, and it won’t rate highly unless they happen to be a soap-opera star. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to impress that Korea is worse than anywhere else. If you ask me, Koreans are doing remarkably well considering their history–occupation by the Japanese, the Korean War, oppressive governments, wide-spread poverty.

The country has undergone a dramatic transformation—modernizing and westernizing. Pressures not experienced before have been introduced; and now that the boom of the 80s and 90s is over, new stresses and tensions associated with economic recession and unemployment are worming their way into daily life and social consciousness. Family dynamics and relationships are changing, too–I mean, really changing: divorce rates are reaching US proportions; nearly 50% of married women are reportedly having affairs. These things were unheard of not so long ago. But they don’t reflect anything remarkable by western standards.

No, if you ask me, the crime here, even bizarre crime, is just business as usual. You can’t blame it on the social effects of a turbulent history—that is, not all of it. A relatively new kind of crime is emerging here that you could argue is because of modernization and changing value systems. An example of it caused a big stir recently. A wife plotted to have her husband killed for insurance money. The couple’s son was in on it, too. With the strong emphasis on family (and bloodlines) here, this was most definitely a socially shameful, ‘taboo crime.’ Thus, when the plot was uncovered the wife committed suicide, leaving the husband to grapple with ongoing disbelief.

The public is also mystified, reflecting on this uncommon crime as a further indication of the fabric of society tearing apart. In fact, overly sensitive citizens have interpreted such crimes as a sign that the apocalypse is due at any moment. Of course, these panicky observations are laughable for a westerner from a country where financially inspired crimes and the inherent evils of capitalism are a part of daily life: it’s just the same old same old like I said, except in a Korean setting. But serial killing has always been around; you can’t put it down to economics.

So, what about that guy who killed 26 people? Well, he’ll be executed. They don’t waste time incarcerating lunatics like that over here. Like I always say, Koreans can be incredibly practical. (Apparently, in the old days, serious criminals were tied to trees and left as tasty tiger snacks. Koreans are environmentally friendly, too.)

However, the death sentence has created a problem for ‘lessor’ criminals on death row who were hoping for leniency. They’re upset at the loony for turning public opinion in favour of the rope. He just can’t seem to make friends these days. I guess it’s because the world is against him, yet again. As for the other serial killers–that is, the two I actually know about, well, they’ve just blended back into this so-called homogeneous society, perhaps until the next rainy night inspires a deadly melancholy.

Postscript: nearly a year after writing this the south-western Seoul killer, the one who struck near my girl friend’s apartment, was caught. His excuse was something like he didn’t like to see women happy, and if he saw women being happy, he felt like killing them. This included children, apparently, because two were included in his murdering spree. The countryside killer, however, remains at large.