Serial Murderer Kills Himself in Jail

By Kwon Mee-yoo - The Korea Times

November 22, 2009

Jeong Nam-gyu, 40, a serial killer imprisoned while awaiting execution, committed suicide in his cell Sunday.

The convicted murderer killed himself Saturday morning in his cell at the Seoul Detention House in Uiwang, Gyeonggi Province, south of Seoul.

According to the Ministry of Justice, the inmate on death row hung himself with a noose made from a plastic bag. Upon being discovered by a guard, Chung was rushed to hospital, but he died Sunday morning.

He did not leave a note, but officials found a memo in his private notebook. It said, "The government is not considering abolishing capital punishment. Life is like a cloud, coming and going transiently."

The Ministry of Justice said Jeong might have been aware that the death penalty was becoming a social issue and uncertainties regarding his execution may have driven him to take his own life.

Doctors concluded that he died from brain damage caused by hypoxia, but the ministry still requested an autopsy by the National Institute of Scientific Investigation to confirm the cause of death.

Jeong was sentenced to death for the murder of 13 people, including two minors, and for inflicting serious injuries upon them while sexually assaulting them, during a period from January 2004 to April 2006. He was convicted in 2007 and sentenced to death.

Many of the victims were women and children living in southwestern Seoul. Jeong said, during police questioning, that he had targeted the humble residential areas because closed-circuit televisions were installed in places where the wealthy live.

He was one of nearly 60 condemned criminals in local correctional facilities. Since its foundation in 1948, South Korea has executed a total of 920 people, according to a Justice Ministry. The last execution was carried out in December 1997, when 23 people were put to death.

Amnesty International listed Korea as one of the "death penalty-free states" in 2007 as it had not executed anyone for 10 years.

Jeong's suicide has stirred up criticism over the poor management of death-row inmates.

Plastic bags, which the serial murderer used to hang himself, are distributed in every cell. Jeong's cell was not equipped with CCTV and the prison has not been able to determine when Jeong hung himself exactly.

According to the Justice Ministry, 82 convicted criminals have committed suicide in prison since 2004. Most suicides took place in isolated cells and one third of the criminals had been convicted of murder.

The Legal Research and Training Institute said that more than 30 prisoners out of 100,000 commit suicide in Korea, according to data from 2006, which is the highest rate among member countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

Lax security has been blamed for allowing inmates to sneak in banned items. From 2004 to 2008, 836 convicts were found to have brought in prohibited objects such as cash, cellular phones and cigarettes.

Unrepentant Serial Killer Gets Death

English.chosun.com

Sep. 21, 2006

Police Arrest Suspected Serial Killer

April 25, 2006

A suspect in the recent serial murder cases has been caught. The suspect Chung, 37, is thought to have been involved in eight attacks, wounding eight and killing five including three sisters found dead March 27 in Bongcheon-dong, Seoul.

Chung confessed to being responsible for the three serial killings that happened in the southwestern part of Seoul in 2004, and the police are now investigating into the case to confirm the offense.

The Seoul Yeongdeungpo police station, which arrested Chung for murder yesterday, likened him to the notoriously devilish murderer Yoo Young-chul for brutally killing randomly selected people out of discontent with his own life.

According to the police, Chung confessed to murdering females mostly living alone in the southwestern part of Seoul, including Geumcheon-gu, Gwanak-gu, Dongjak-gu and Yeongdeungpo-gu, after breaking into their houses since February 2004.

On March 27 at around 4:30 a.m., Chung broke into the second-floor house of Kim, 55, in Gwanak-gu where Kim’s three daughters were sleeping. Chung hit the girls with a blunt instrument, severely wounding one and killing the other two. He then set the blanket on fire before running away. The injured girl died, too, a few days later.

On April 18 last year, Chung broke into a house in Geumcheon-gu by the window and struck Hwang, 47, and her 13-year-old son with a blunt weapon, stealing money and other goods. Later on October 9, he entered a community center for the disabled in Bongcheon-dong and severely injured two mentally-ill women.

Chung entered another house in Yeongdeungpo-gu last Saturday at around 4:50 a.m. and was caught by the 26-year-old house owner, Kim.

The police tracked Chung’s transit card to find out his routes, and got a confession from him that he used the subway line No. 2 when moving to commit murders.

Chung was very careful not to leave traces of him behind, trying to kill every witness and burn clothes or blankets at the scenes of the crime. He even scrapped newspaper articles reporting his killings to commit a “perfect crime.”

Chung told the police that he wanted to kill every rich man because he was angry with his inability to get a job and get married. Nevertheless, the victims of his crime were all women and the disabled of ordinary background.

In 1989, a year after graduating from high school, Chung committed a special robbery and was sentenced to two and a half years in jail with a stay of execution for four years. He also holds criminal records of serving prison terms for charges of theft, nighttime breaking and entering, and sexual assault. Upon release, he could not find a job and has been living in poverty with his mother and siblings.

He chose Seoul, not Incheon where he lives, to commit the crimes and avoided the Gangnam area where there are many surveillance cameras.

The police see it possible that Chung is also liable for the murder cases in Incheon and other regions, and are jointly conducting investigations with the Gyeonggi Provincial Police Agency.

Serial killer Chung Nam-gyu (37) returns to Yeongdeungpo police station on April 24, 2006 after a re-enactment of one of his crimes.

Chung Nam-kyu leaves a police station to reconstruct his crime at an on-the-spot inspection of the scene of a murder in Seoul in this April, 2006 file photo.

The convicted South Korean mass murderer died on November 22, 2009 after hanging himself in his cell, where he spent two years on death row in a country that still has the death penalty but has not conducted an execution in 12 years.

Chung was found hanging in his cell on Saturday from a garbage bag and was rushed to hospital where he died of a heart attack a day later, a Justice Ministry official said. Suicide is suspected although no will has been found.
Picture taken April, 2006