25/12/2007 should have been a joyful day for 8-year-old Woo Ye-seul and 10-year-old Lee Hye-jin, two neighborhood friends in Anyang, Gyeonggi.
After Christmas services that afternoon, the two girls eagerly left church to buy small gifts for their families. The friends played in a nearby playground before leaving around 4 p.m. That was the last time the two children were seen.
Neither girl had a mobile phone. When their daughters did not return, both families grew anxious. By midnight, they reported the girls missing. Police launched an investigation but requested media not to publicize the case, fearing the children might have been abducted.
Five days later, with no trace of the girls, police went public with the information and announced a reward of up to 30 million won for clues. Weeks, then months, passed with searches yielding no results.
On 11/3/2008, 77 days after the girls disappeared, a reserve officer training on a mountain in Suwon, Gyeonggi, discovered body parts. DNA testing confirmed the remains belonged to Lee Hye-jin. The body had been dismembered into 10 pieces and buried approximately 30 cm deep.
Park Jong-hwan, head of Anyang Police Station, stated that investigators suspected the perpetrator was a single male, based on the method of dismemberment and transportation by car. They focused their investigation on approximately 680 single men living in districts 6 and 8 of Anyang city.
Police discovered that Jeong Seong-hyeon, 38, had rented a 2003 Hyundai Sonata on 25/12/2007, the day of the disappearance, and returned it the next day. Upon inspection, they found bloodstains in the trunk. DNA testing showed the blood matched the DNA of the two girls.
Jeong lived alone in an apartment just about 130 m from the girls' homes. He was reclusive, working as a computer repair technician during the day and a driver in the evenings.
On 18/3, Jeong was arrested at his mother's home in Boryeong, South Chungcheong province.
For many, Jeong's arrest came as a shock. "He was quite good-looking. It's hard to believe someone like him could kill," said a local restaurant owner.
Two days after Jeong's arrest, authorities found Woo Ye-seul's body parts along a stream in Siheung, Gyeonggi.
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The body of 8-year-old Woo Ye-seul was found in a stream in Siheung, Gyeonggi. Photo: Yonhap |
The body of 8-year-old Woo Ye-seul was found in a stream in Siheung, Gyeonggi. Photo: Yonhap
The neighbor's convoluted confession
Jeong initially denied the accusations, offering conflicting statements. He first claimed he accidentally ran over the two girls with his car. Later, Jeong said he killed the victims because they resisted when he tried to pat their heads. The next day, Jeong's story changed again. He claimed he only touched the children's shoulders but they protested, causing him to panic and kill them out of fear they would tell their parents.
Eventually, he confessed to sexually assaulting and disposing of the two girls' bodies.
According to police, Jeong had an unhappy childhood; his parents divorced when he was in middle school, and he lived with his father and stepmother, constantly fearing abandonment.
Jeong stated that as a child, he was frequently beaten by his alcoholic father and bullied by classmates. As an adult, he developed resentment towards women after multiple rejections.
According to his testimony, on 25/12/2007, Jeong finished his night driving shift around 7 a.m. and went to drink soju with a classmate. Afterward, they went to a bar where he drank about two liters of draft beer. Around 11 a.m., upon returning home, Jeong continued to drink and sniff glue. He claimed to have committed the crime while hallucinating.
Around 5:30 p.m., Jeong left his home and saw the two girls returning after buying gifts for their mothers. He recounted luring the girls to his home by asking them to care for a "sick dog." He did not own a dog.
"In a dazed state, I pulled the girls into my house. When I regained consciousness, I realized I was assaulting the girls. I was horrified by what I had done, and then I did those things," Jeong said during a crime scene reenactment on 22/3/2008.
However, prosecutors later found that Jeong was not under the influence of alcohol or glue sniffing before committing the crime. After killing the girls between 7:30 p.m. and 8 p.m., he then continued to drink and inhale a large amount of glue just before dismembering the bodies around 10:30 p.m.
During a search of Jeong's home, police found 1,400 videos and approximately 10,000 photos containing pornographic content.
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Jeong Seong-hyeon is led by police during a crime scene reenactment, March 2008. Photo: Yonhap |
Jeong Seong-hyeon is led by police during a crime scene reenactment, March 2008. Photo: Yonhap
Investigators later discovered Jeong was also linked to an unsolved 2004 murder in Gunpo, Gyeonggi. He was suspected of killing a sex worker after a financial dispute, dismembering the victim, and burying the body.
In that case, police had questioned Jeong after confirming he was the last person to speak with the victim. Jeong failed a polygraph test but maintained they only discussed driving services. He had an alibi using mobile phone location data and was released due to insufficient evidence.
Death penalty for the perpetrator
Jeong's crimes devastated the two girls' families.
Hye-jin's father could not overcome the psychological trauma of his daughter's brutal murder. He quit his 10-year job, succumbed to alcoholism, and died of a stroke in March 2014 at the age of 53. Neighbors described the father as "a soulless, skeletal figure" after his daughter's death.
Ye-seul's family quietly moved away after the funeral without informing close neighbors.
On 18/6/2008, Jeong was sentenced to death by the Suwon District Court for all three murders. He appealed to the High Court, but his appeal was rejected, and he then appealed to the Supreme Court.
In February 2009, the Supreme Court upheld Jeong's death sentence. In its ruling, the court stated that Jeong had assaulted and murdered a woman in 2004 over a minor dispute, and then several years later, lured two defenseless young girls, sexually assaulted, and murdered them.
The court determined that Jeong's actions were utterly brutal and repetitive, showing no remorse, with a very low potential for rehabilitation, making the death penalty entirely appropriate.
While in prison, Jeong displayed contradictory and defiant behavior. In 2012, he filed a lawsuit against the government demanding 40 million won (29,000 USD) in compensation, claiming he was coerced into confessing during the investigation. In 2017, he sued a journalist for defamation for calling him a "murderer." Both lawsuits were dismissed.
In 2022, when Channel A television planned to air the case in a crime documentary, Jeong sent nine handwritten letters asserting his innocence. "Did anyone see me kill them? I've never kidnapped anyone. How could I have killed them?" Jeong wrote.
Jeong remains on death row, incarcerated at the Seoul Detention Center. Legally, South Korea maintains the death penalty but has not carried out any executions since 1997.
By Tue Anh (according to JoongAng, Yonhap)
