Sex offender kills woman despite wearing monitoring anklet

A 42-year-old man who viewed pornography overnight wandered throughout his neighborhood with a knife and duct tape and wearing a blue mask at 9 a.m. Monday. As a registered sex offender, he was wearing an electronic monitoring anklet but this did not stop him.

Thirty minutes later, he saw a 37-year-old woman who left home to send off her two children on a kindergarten bus. The bus stop was just 50 meters from her home, so she did not lock the door.

The man then slipped into her home and hid behind the bedroom door. When she returned, he threatened her and attempted to rape her. She tried to push him back and escape but was killed after he stabbed her in the neck three times.

Police in Seoul`s Gwangjin district on Tuesday said they applied for an arrest warrant against the suspect. He had been sentenced to 90 months in prison for raping a 20-something woman after breaking into her room on a rooftop in 2004.

Released in November last year, the suspect was ordered to wear an electronic monitoring anklet for seven years and attend a sexual violence treatment program for 40 hours. This, however, did not stop him from committing the crime.

The Seoul Probation Office simply tracks a registered sex offender unless he or she shows peculiar activities such as staying near an elementary school for a long time.

The suspect committed his crime just a kilometer from his house. He worked at an electric pipe company and his job involved a lot of travel, so for him to move more than kilometer from home was not unusual.

“The court decides confinement or travel limits and did not give him a special order,” a police source said, “It seems that the electronic monitoring anklet didn`t work in his case.”

After being released, he went to the probation office for more than 10 interviews over 10 months and probation officers visited him at home more than 40 times.

Another source said, “An electronic monitoring anklet can track a subject but cannot control his or her activities.”

The suspect allegedly viewed pornographic videos and pictures for three hours from 2 a.m. right before committing the crime. His computer had hundreds of illegal videos and photos that were downloaded.

He told police, “I watched them all night and had a bottle of soju (traditional Korean liquor).”

A three-time sex offender, he was merely required to attend a 40-hour sexual violence education course after his release. He received no psychotherapy afterwards and just had regular check-ins with probation officers but he told of his daily life only.

This is why experts say even a sex offender who wears an electronic monitoring anklet can be a timebomb waiting to go off unless he or she gets psychotherapy.

“A sex criminal who is estranged and lives alone is more likely to satisfy his sexual desire with pornography, which reinforces his wrong perceptions of sex,” said Cho Eun-kyung, a criminal psychology professor at Hallym University in Chuncheon, Gangwon Province, adding, “So a treatment program that corrects the thoughts and actions of a sex criminal should continue to be offered.”

dong@donga.com