Former Baseball Slugger, Alone, Killed Kim and Her Daughters

Police officially concluded that former slugger Lee Ho-seong, 41, single-handedly murdered his girlfriend and her three daughters.

Seoul Mapo Police, in charge of the Lee case, confirmed yesterday that the three fingerprint impressions found in the victim’s apartment and the other 12 impressions found on the water bottle in the victim’s car matched those of Lee, concluding that, without further evidence to the contrary, the murder was carried out by Lee alone.

According to authorities, an employee of the victim, known only by her last name Kim, identified the suspect caught on surveillance cameras at Kim’s apartment complex as Lee, who frequented Kim’s sushi restaurant.

Police also discovered that the woman Lee met just prior to killing himself was another girlfriend, only known as Cha. Lee and the woman first met at a night club last August. They had been sleeping together at the woman’s place since last December.

Cha reportedly told police that Lee told her he would go on a business trip outside of Seoul, which later turned out to be his meeting with victim Kim. Cha denied any prior knowledge of that meeting.

Cha also related to authorities, “At around midnight on Mar. 8, I met Lee. We stayed together until the next midnight. We’d been to a couple of hotels and motels.” Just before parting, according to Cha, they visited a Han River Park where Lee emptied two bottles of soju, and told her that he loved her but that it was time to go their separate ways. Lee allegedly pushed her into a taxi and left.

Police explained, “Lee did not want to marry Kim. But he pretended to do so. He wanted her money. But when things got tough on Kim, it seemed that Lee began to think about killing her.”

A former employee of Kim testified, “Lee used to visit our restaurant almost everyday. Recently, however, he rarely showed up, maybe once a week. They seemed to be drifting apart.”

Authorities, however, have failed to fully account for the remaining 70 million won of the total 170 million Lee allegedly stole from Kim. They are trailing its whereabouts and looking into the possibility an accomplice may have aided and abetted.

In the meantime, on Mar. 7, three days prior to Lee’s suicide, police dispatched officers to Ilsan Cycle Race Stadium on a tip-off that Lee and Cha would visit the racing house. Lee actually visited it, but police failed to find him.

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