The news of that day has passed, but its meaning remains with us today. "That Day, Today" reads the present through the records of the past. — Editor's note
On Aug. 27, 2022, four years ago, the Daejeon District Court issued arrest warrants for Lee Seung-man and Lee Jung-hak, suspects in the Kookmin Bank robbery-murder case that had gone unsolved for 21 years.
An Investigation Stalled for 21 Years Finally Reached Its Suspects
At around 10 a.m. on Dec. 21, 2001, in the underground parking garage of Kookmin Bank's Chungcheong regional headquarters in Dunsan-dong, Seo-gu, Daejeon, two masked men blocked a cash transport vehicle and fired a handgun at Kim, 45 at the time, a cash management manager at the bank's Yongjeon-dong branch. Kim was taken to a hospital with a gunshot wound but died, and the assailants fled with 300 million won in cash.
The crime proved to have been meticulously planned in advance. Two months earlier, on Oct. 15 of that year, a police officer on patrol in Daedeok-gu, Daejeon, was struck by a vehicle and had his .38-caliber revolver taken. The Grandeur XG sedan used in that incident had itself been stolen in Suwon some 20 days before. Immediately after the robbery, the assailants switched to a white vehicle in the underground parking garage of a nearby commercial building to cover their tracks.
The investigation, however, lost its way from the start. On Aug. 29, 2002, police identified three people, including a man in his 20s, as suspects and requested arrest warrants, but the court rejected them. Those detained at the time claimed their confessions were false and obtained through police torture, and the case went cold.
DNA Reopened a Case 21 Years Old
Light returned to the case when the statute of limitations system changed. The statute of limitations in this case was set to expire in 2016, but it was extended indefinitely by the July 2015 enactment of the so-called Tae-wan Act, which abolished the statute of limitations for murder. The Daejeon Metropolitan Police Agency's cold case unit soon reopened the investigation.
The break came from a mask and a handkerchief left in the getaway vehicle. When these were reanalyzed using the latest forensic techniques, investigators confirmed in October 2017 that the DNA matched material recovered from an illegal gaming arcade in North Chungcheong Province. After screening some 15,000 people who might have entered that arcade, police identified Lee Jung-hak as a suspect in March 2022.
Police arrested Lee Jung-hak on Aug. 25 and, based on his statements, apprehended Lee Seung-man the same day. Two days later, on Aug. 27, Choi Kwang-jin, the warrant judge at the Daejeon District Court, issued arrest warrants for both men, citing "the risk of flight and the possibility of destroying evidence." It was the moment the case moved to court after 21 years.
On Sept. 1, police held a public briefing on how the arrests were made, and the following day Lee Seung-man confessed to a separate crime. He said he was also responsible for the January 22, 2003 theft of a transport vehicle carrying about 470 million won in cash from an underground shopping mall parking garage in Eunhaeng-dong, Daejeon. The statute of limitations on that case, however, had already expired.
Who Pulled the Trigger? A Courtroom Battle and Its Conclusion
At trial, the two men disputed who had pulled the trigger. Lee Jung-hak said Lee Seung-man fired the weapon, while Lee Seung-man denied it and countered that Lee Jung-hak was the shooter.
Ahead of the first-instance verdict, Lee Seung-man sent a letter to the North Jeolla Provincial Police Agency in an attempt to improve his position at trial, claiming that Lee Jung-hak was the true culprit in the killing of Sgt. Baek Sun-gi in Jeonju and the theft of his handgun. Police did in fact recover the stolen weapon from the ceiling of an inn room in Ulsan that he had pointed them to.
On Jan. 16, 2023, prosecutors sought the death penalty for Lee Seung-man and a life sentence for Lee Jung-hak. On Feb. 17, the 12th criminal division of the Daejeon District Court, presided over by Na Sang-hoon, sentenced Lee Seung-man to life in prison with 20 years of electronic monitoring and Lee Jung-hak to 20 years in prison with 10 years of electronic monitoring, saying the crime was "of a grave nature, meticulously planned, and driven primarily by the defendant, and as a killing committed for the purpose of robbery, it is highly deserving of condemnation."
Lee Jung-hak's sentence was overturned on appeal. On Aug. 18 of that year, the first criminal division of the Daejeon High Court, presided over by Song Seok-bong, ruled that the statutory penalties for robbery-murder are limited to death or life imprisonment and that the 20-year term imposed at first instance fell outside that range. It sentenced Lee Jung-hak to life in prison as well.
The sentences for both men were finalized on Dec. 14 of that year when the first division of the Supreme Court, with Justice Noh Tae-ak as the presiding justice on the case, dismissed their appeals. It took 21 years, but Lee Seung-man and Lee Jung-hak ultimately faced justice. With that, the Daejeon Kookmin Bank robbery-murder case shed its long-standing label as an unsolved crime.
