Suspect’s College Classmate May Be Accomplice

Police investigating the case involving two missing elementary school girls in Anyang yesterday found two separate traces of male blood and body fluids in suspect Jeong’s house and on a double-edged saw presumably used for the crime. Officials say they are looking into the potential of additional crimes committed by the suspect, as well as the possibility of a cohort.

The Gyeonggi Provincial Police Agency’s investigative team said on March 20, “We received information from the National Institute of Scientific Investigation that a blood sample found in the toilet of the suspect’s house and another trace of body fluids on the handle of a saw used for disembowelment was different from the suspect’s DNA.”

Police interrogated “A,” a college senior of the suspect. They are believed to have met on Christmas morning last year, the day the two schoolgirls went missing. Police discovered that the suspect and the acquaintance spoke on the phone later that day at around 10 p.m.

“We are open to all possibilities, but there has been no conclusive evidence to suggest that the suspect has an accomplice or committed additional crimes,” said the police.

The police added that Jeong confessed, “(on the day of crime) I saw the two school girls in an alley on my way to buy cigarettes. I killed by pushing them against the wall trying to quiet them because they screamed when I touched their shoulders and I was scared they would tell their parents.”

Jeong said, “First I carried one of the bodies to my house, while hiding the other body behind a pile of garbage. Later I dismembered the bodies for easier disposal. I hid the body parts in a plastic bucket.”

At a detention hearing on Wednesday, the suspect told the court that he strangled the girls because they resisted when he tried to take them to his house.

Police believe Jeong keeps giving contradicting statements in order to hide the fact that his crime was a sexual offense.

Meanwhile, police investigators found that a woman’s body found in the Wangsong reservoir was identified as a 38-year-old divorced woman living in Hwaseong, Gyeonggi Province. Police believe the woman was murdered by someone she knows, because there was no missing person’s report and her fingertips were all cut off.