Christmas murderer who killed two young girls in Anyang in 2007 still unrepentant

A poster released by police in search of two missing elementary school students, Woo Ye-seul and Lee Hye-jin. [SCREEN CAPTURE]

 
[KOREAN CRIME FILES #9]  


Behind the glitz and glamour seen in pop culture, Korea’s grimmest and most harrowing crime stories, some more well-known than others, continue to haunt society today. The Korea JoongAng Daily takes a deep dive into some of these stories, sharing a glimpse into the darker side of society as well as the most up-to-date known facts. — Ed. 
 
It was supposed to be a merry Christmas Day in 2007 for 8-year-old Woo Ye-seul and 10-year-old Lee Hye-jin, two neighborhood friends from Anyang, Gyeonggi. After Christmas service that afternoon, the girls left church excitedly to buy small gifts for their families. They were often seen playing together at nearby playgrounds, and that day, too, they spent time at one before leaving together around 4 p.m.

 
That was the last time they were seen, captured briefly on CCTV.

 
Neither girl owned a cell phone, and when they failed to return home that evening, their parents waited in growing dread. At midnight, they reported them missing. The police launched an investigation but asked the media not to report on it publicly, fearing it might involve kidnapping.

 
Five days later, with no trace of the children, the police went public. They searched nearby mountains and issued an Amber Alert. Days turned into weeks, then months.

 
On March 11, 2008 — 77 days after the girls vanished — a man on reserve army training found body parts on a mountain in Suwon, Gyeonggi. DNA tests confirmed the remains belonged to 10-year-old Lee. Her body had been cut into ten pieces and buried about 30 centimeters (11 inches) underground.

 
The discovery led police to 38-year-old Jeong Seong-hyeon, a man living alone in the same neighborhood.

 
Jeong initially denied the charges. But under questioning, he confessed: he had sexually assaulted, murdered, dismembered and disposed of the bodies of the two girls. Later, parts of Woo’s body were found along a stream in Siheung, Gyeonggi.

 
A kind, quiet neighbor

 
To many, Jeong’s arrest came as a shock.

 
“He was rather good-looking,” recalled a restaurant owner from the area. “It’s hard to believe someone like him could kill.”

 
Jeong lived only a few hundred meters away from the two girls. He kept to himself, working as a computer repairman by day and a substitute driver at night.

 
“Given the way the bodies were dismembered and transported using a vehicle, we suspected the culprit was a man living alone,” said Park Jong-hwan, then-chief of the Anyang Police Precinct, during a press briefing. “We focused our investigation on about 680 single men living in the 6th and 8th districts of Anyang.”

 

A car rented by Jeong Seong-hyeon, used to transport the bodies of two elementary school students, Woo Ye-seul and Lee Hye-jin.[YONHAP]

 
Police soon discovered that Jeong had rented a car on Dec. 25, 2007 — the day of the disappearance — and returned it the next day. Blood traces were found in the trunk. A DNA test said the traces were from Woo and Lee.

 
On March 18, Jeong was arrested at his mother’s house in Boryeong, South Chungcheong.

 
At first, Jeong gave conflicting statements. He claimed he had accidentally run over the girls with his car. Then he said he killed them when they resisted his attempts to pat them on the head. The next day, his story changed again: He said he had merely touched their shoulders, but when they protested, he panicked, and, afraid they would tell their parents, killed them.

 
The confession

 
According to police, Jeong had a troubled childhood.

 
“After his parents divorced when he was in middle school, he grew up under a stepmother and developed a deep fear of abandonment,” said the Anyang police chief. 
 
“He said he had dated three women, hoping to marry, but after being rejected by women he loved, he developed feelings of contempt and hatred toward women and society.”

 

Jeong Seong-hyeon, who was sentenced to death for killing two elementary school students and dismembering their bodies, speaks to reporters on March 18, 2008. [YONHAP]

 
Jeong told police he had endured abuse from his father as a child and bullying from classmates, which made him drop out of high school. In adulthood, he said, he developed resentment toward women after repeated rejections — a hatred that eventually drove him to plan the killings.

 
Speaking to a profiler, Jeong finally gave a detailed confession.

 
“In a daze, I dragged the girls into my home,” he said during a reenactment on March 22, 2008. When he came to his senses, Jeong said, he realized he was assaulting the girls. "I was terrified of what I'd done, and then I did what I did."

 
He told police he had lured the girls by asking them to look after his “sick dog.” He did not have a dog.

 
According to his testimony, on Dec. 25, 2007, Jeong finished his overnight driving shift around 7 a.m. and began drinking soju with a college friend. Later, they moved to another bar, where he drank about two liters of draft beer.

 
By the time he returned home around 11 a.m., he continued drinking and eventually began sniffing glue. He later claimed he committed the crime while hallucinating.

 
Around 5:30 p.m., Jeong left home and saw the two girls on their way home after buying gifts for their mothers. He lured them to his house, assaulted them and then smothered them to death out of fear they would report him.

 
However, prosecutors later found that he had not been under the influence of alcohol or glue before the murders. He only drank again after killing the girls — between 7:30 and 8 p.m. — and inhaled a large amount of glue shortly before mutilating their bodies around 10:30 p.m.

 

Searchers look for the remains of 8-year-old Woo Ye-seul in a stream in Siheung, Gyeonggi, on March 18, 2008. [YONHAP]

 
During a search of his home, police found 1,400 pornographic videos and about 10,000 sexually explicit photos. When questioned about them, Jeong replied brazenly.  
 
“Sir, when you watch porn, don’t you also want something more stimulating?”

 
Investigators later discovered that Jeong had also been involved in an unsolved 2004 murder case in Gunpo, Gyeonggi. He had killed a sex worker after a payment dispute, dismembered her body and buried the remains.

 
In that case, police had already questioned Jeong after confirming that he was the last person the victim had spoken to. He even failed a polygraph test but claimed they had spoken only about his driving service. Using cell phone location data, he established an alibi and was released due to a lack of evidence. The case was ultimately closed as involuntary manslaughter, not murder.

 
The aftermath

 
The crimes destroyed more than the lives of the victims.

 
Lee’s father, unable to recover from the trauma of losing his daughter so brutally, quit the job he had held for 10 years. He turned to alcohol and died of a stroke in March 2014 at the age of 53.

 
“He became a shell of a person,” a neighbor told JTBC, an affiliate of the Korea JoongAng Daily, in 2013. “Just bones and skin. After his daughter’s death, he lived only on alcohol. He wasn’t even human anymore.”

 

Jeong Seong-hyeon, who was sentenced to death for killing two elementary school students and dismembering their bodies, heads to court in 2008. [YONHAP]

 
Woo’s family quietly moved away after the funeral without even notifying close neighbors.

 
In February 2009, the Supreme Court upheld Jeong’s death sentence.

 
“The defendant assaulted and killed an adult woman over a trivial argument, then a few years later lured two young girls incapable of defending themselves, sexually assaulted and murdered them,” the court said in its ruling.  
 
“He meticulously dismembered and disposed of their bodies to conceal his crime, horrifying the entire nation. His motives are incomprehensible, his remorse insincere and the likelihood of rehabilitation minimal. Given his repeated pattern of violence and the extreme brutality of his acts, the death sentence is justified.”

 
While in prison, Jeong displayed a contradictory, defiant attitude. In 2012, he filed a 40 million won ($29,000) compensation lawsuit against the government, claiming he had been coerced into confessing during the investigations. In 2017, he sued a journalist for defamation for calling him a “murderer.” Both cases were dismissed.

 
In 2022, when local broadcaster Channel A planned to feature the case in its crime documentary, Jeong sent nine handwritten letters protesting his innocence. “Did anyone see me kill them?” he wrote. “I never kidnapped anyone. How could I have killed them?”

 
He remains on death row at the Seoul Detention Center to this day.

BY CHO JUNG-WOO [cho.jungwoo1@joongang.co.kr]