A Chinese man surnamed Jung, arrested on murder charges in the killing of a Chinese woman in her 20s who was a graduate student in Gyeongsan, North Gyeongsang Province, is suspected of brutally dismembering the victim's body and dumping the remains across a wide area.
Police have urgently deployed personnel to multiple locations identified by Jung to search for the dismembered remains.
Investigators are also moving quickly on supplementary inquiries to determine whether the motive Jung described matches the facts, while considering a psychopathy assessment for the suspect given the brutality of the crime.
According to the Gyeongsan Police Station in North Gyeongsang Province on the 27th, Jung, a man in his 30s, partially confessed during questioning, saying he killed the graduate student, identified as A, in the early hours of the 20th of this month. He said he severely dismembered the body multiple times after the killing and dumped the remains in Gyeongsan as well as in Gyeonggi Province and other areas. Among the locations the suspect identified as dumping sites was a waste incineration facility, raising the possibility that some remains have already been burned.
Police believe Jung most likely used his own car to transport the remains and are securing and analyzing closed-circuit television footage from around the suspect's residence.
Regarding the motive, Jung reportedly said he killed A, with whom he had been in a romantic relationship, impulsively during an argument. But police, noting that Jung could give statements favorable to himself now that the victim is dead, are also conducting forensic analysis of mobile phones to establish the nature of the relationship between the two.
Investigators are also examining whether the killing was premeditated, focusing on the fact that on the day of the crime Jung disguised himself as A by wearing women's clothing, took a taxi to the area near Dongdaegu Station, turned off the victim's mobile phone, and the following day filed a false missing-person report on A with police himself.
Several sets of women's clothing were found at Jung's residence, and police are investigating how they came to be there.
Police sought an arrest warrant for Jung the previous day, and the pre-detention hearing was held at the Daegu District Court on the morning of the 27th.
A police official said the force is "conducting an investigation to establish the facts of the case," adding that "we cannot comment on specifics."
A had been staying with her family in China during the school break and entered South Korea on the 14th of this month to attend a graduate degree conferral ceremony at a university in Gyeongsan. She lost contact with family and acquaintances from the 20th, the day of the ceremony, and was found dead on the afternoon of the 25th at Jung's residence in Hayang-eup, Gyeongsan.
