On May 27, a woman identified as 23-year-old Jung Yoo-Jung was arrested in Busan’s Geumjeong district of South Korea for allegedly killing and dismembering a woman who was in her 20s. As per Chosun Ilbo’s report, Jung initially said she killed the woman who worked as a tutor during an argument. However, it was revealed the crime was committed out of “curiosity about murder”.
Korea Times report suggested that Jung was obsessed with true crime-related TV shows and books. The incident took place on May 26.
Jung was fascinated by the concept of murder and then concealing the body. To do “research” on the process of concealing the body after murder, Jung decided to kill someone in reality. During the investigation, Busan Police said that they found she used her phone and borrowed books from a library to get information on how to commit the alleged crime.
Jung decided to find her victim through a tutor aggregator application that connects parents to private tutors. She contacted the victim over the phone, posing as the mother of a ninth-grader who wanted to learn English. After finalizing the meeting over the call, she told the victim that her “daughter” would come to her home for a consultation after two days.
Jung bought a school uniform online to make sure she looked like a student. She went to the victim’s house, where she allegedly stabbed her to death. In a statement, the police said, “Jung is short, and with the uniform on, the victim probably mistook her for a middle-school student.”
After the murder, she bought bleach and trash bags from a nearby supermarket to dispose of the body and clean the crime scene. She dismembered the victim and placed some of her body parts in a suitcase. Jung then hired a cab to go to the Nakdong River to dispose of the body parts.
Jung planned the whole scenario to make it look like the victim has disappeared. She kept her mobile phone, ID, and wallet in an attempt to commit the “perfect crime”. However, the cab driver she hired was suspicious of her actions and informed the police. During the search, the police found bloodstained clothes and the rest of the mutilated body at Jung’s house.
As per the police, Jung had been planning the murder for three months. Her search-related history showed she looked for “murder without a corpse” online. Speaking to the media, her grandfather claimed she was studying to become a civil servant. “I want to express my sincerest apology to the victim’s family for failing to raise my granddaughter properly,” he said to the media.
After getting arrested for the crime, Jung said she was “sorry” for the victim’s family and claimed she was “out of her mind”. Police have called for a psychological test of Jung to determine if she is a psychopath. During a press meeting, the police described Jung as a loner and a recluse who has been unemployed since graduating from high school five years ago. The matter has been transferred to prosecution for further investigation and indictment.
The police revealed Jung’s identity on June 1. The victim’s identity was not revealed.
