South Korea: Man responsible for 14 murders claims he's surprised to have not been caught earlier

In South Korea, a man who had murdered 14 women and girls 30 years ago recently made a bizarre claim. 

Lee Chun-jae, responsible for the murders recently claimed that he was shocked that he wasn’t caught earlier.

The 57-year-old recently said that he didn’t expect the crimes to be buried forever.

"I didn't think the crimes would be buried forever," Lee told a court in the city of Suwon in South Korea.

Last year, he confessed to the murders to the police. But this was pertinent, for this was the first time he had referred the killings.

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A South Korean law protects the privacy of suspects and criminals, which is why the criminal’s full name is not divulged in the country.

The suspect was released in 2008 after spending 20 years in prison for raping and murdering a 13-year-old girl.

Among his 10 killings that took place between 1986 and 1991, commonly referred to as the Hwaseong murders, the murder of the 13-year-old is the most commonly known.

For a long time, the nine murders besides the one mentioned above went unsolved. The cases were recorded in “Memories of Murder”, a film in 2003 made by Bong Joon Ho made by “Parasite”.

In 2019, the police had launched an investigation into the murders after DNA evidence emerged.

The assailant had protested his innocence for years, and was granted a retrial. Currently, his lawyers are trying to overturn his conviction.

The man’s retrial is currently underway. On Monday, Lee claimed that the police had questioned him during the killing but said that he was carrying the watch of one of his victims, but was only asked for his identification by the police, after which he was set free.

"I still don't understand (why I wasn't a suspect)," CNN quoted him as saying.

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"Crimes happened around me and I didn't try hard to hide things so I thought I would get caught easily. There were hundreds of police forces. I bumped into detectives all the time but they always asked me about people around me”, he further said, according to CNN.

Lee claimed that he had no reason for killing the youngster, and claimed to have not seen any emotion during the murder of the 13-year-old.

”It was an impulsive act," he claimed in court.

"I heard from someone that a person with a disability was arrested but I didn't know which one he was arrested for as I committed many (crimes)”, he added, as reported by CNN.