Lee Choon-jae

Lee Choon-jae (; born January 31, 1963), also known as the Hwaseong Serial Killer, is a South Korean serial killer known for committing the Hwaseong serial murders . Between 1986 and 1994, Lee murdered fifteen women and girls in addition to committing numerous sexual assaults, predominantly in Hwaseong, Gyeonggi Province, and the surrounding areas. The murders, which remained unsolved for thirty years, are considered to be the most infamous in modern South Korean history and were the inspiration for the film Memories of Murder.

Lee was sentenced to life imprisonment with the possibility of parole after twenty years for killing his sister-in-law in 1994, but despite DNA evidence and his confession to the other murders in 2019, he could not be prosecuted for them because the statute of limitations had expired.

Early life Lee Choon-jae was born in Hwaseong, Gyeonggi Province, on January 31, 1963. According to his mother, he had a good education and worked well with others. Lee had a younger brother who drowned in his childhood, an incident which reportedly traumatized him.

After graduating from high school in February 1983, Lee joined the Republic of Korea Army and served as a tank driver until his discharge in January 1986. In 1990 he began working for a construction company as an unlicensed crane operator in the Cheongpa-dong neighbourhood of Seoul. The following year, Lee was employed as a crane operator for a company in Cheongwon, North Chungcheong Province, which he ultimately quit in March 1993. In April 1992, Lee married an administrator and had a son with her. However, Lee was a violent alcoholic who often physically abused his family.

On September 26, 1989, Lee broke into a house in Suwon and was discovered by the landlord. He was sentenced by the Suwon District Court to one year and six months' imprisonment in the first trial in February 1990 for the charges of robbery and assault.

Hwaseong serial murders For a period of four years and seven months, between September 15, 1986, and April 3, 1991, Lee committed a series of rapes and murders in and around Hwaseong. The victims, all women, were found bound, gagged, raped and in most cases strangled to death with their own clothes, such as pantyhose or socks. The murders sparked the largest criminal case in South Korean history, with over 2million man-days spent on investigation and over 21,000 suspects investigated. The murders remained unsolved for thirty years until Lee was identified as a suspect in 2019. He confessed to four undisclosed murders not originally included in the original list of crimes and all ten serial murders, including a case previously determined to be a copycat crime (for which a man named Yoon Sung-yeo had previously been sentenced to life imprisonment).

Background On September 13, 1986, Lee Wan-im (71) disappeared while returning home after visiting her daughter. Her body was found in a pasture on 19 September, four days following her murder. According to the original investigator, Lee went to his father-in-law offering help in the search for the girl, and both reported that she might have been abducted. after repeated questioning where he later asked, "How many years do you serve in prison for rape and murder?" with the possibility of parole after twenty years. The total number of suspects also grew, eventually reaching a total count of 21,280 individuals. In addition, 40,116 individuals had their fingerprints taken, and 570 DNA samples and 180 hair samples were analyzed. During the investigation, rumors that the killer targeted women wearing red clothes on rainy days spread, leading some female police officers to wear red clothes in an attempt to lure the killer into a trap. The characteristics of the suspect, which were described by the bus driver, were similar to the descriptions given by survivors who had been sexually assaulted. In addition, he was described as having soft hands. but in 2019 police acknowledged that this was likely inaccurate, because Lee had blood type O. A survivor of the murders, Lee Geum-ran (36), was attacked by Lee in late 1986 and she described him as skinny, with a low voice. Yoon admitted guilt during questioning, and according to a 1989 report written by an expert at the National Forensic Service, tests of pubic hair samples found at the scene returned a 40% match with Yoon's. and Yoon was sentenced to life imprisonment.

Public reaction The release of the film Memories of Murder (2003), which was partially inspired by the Hwaseong serial murders, sparked renewed interest in the case. The murder of a female college student in Hwaseong the following year also sparked fears that the killer had returned. The murders made headlines again as the statute of limitations for the most recent victims was due to expire on April 2, 2006.

At the time of the killings, there was a fifteen-year statute of limitations for first-degree murder. This was increased to twenty-five years in 2007, and finally lifted in 2015, but it was not retroactive. However, evidence and police records were kept due to the significance of the case.

Identification and confession On September 18, 2019, police announced that Lee had been identified as a suspect in the Hwaseong serial murders. At the time he was identified, Lee was already serving a life sentence at a prison in Busan for the rape and murder of his sister-in-law. He initially denied any involvement in the serial murders, but on October 2, police announced that he had confessed to killing fourteen people, including all ten victims in the original investigation, which includes the case previously considered to be a copycat crime, and four others. Two of those other murders happened in Hwaseong but had not previously been attributed to Lee, and two happened in Cheongju. As of October 2019, details about those four victims have not been released. In addition to the murders, Lee also confessed to more than thirty rapes and attempted rapes.

On November 15, 2019, police announced that they had reached a provisional conclusion that Lee was responsible for all ten serial murders. Police expressed that Lee had weak self-esteem due to his introverted personality but experienced a sense of accomplishment and self-reliance for the first time during his military service, which led him to commit sex crimes to express his frustration caused by his monotonous life following his discharge. The provincial police chief stated that Lee displayed psychopathic tendencies by being unable to empathize with the victims' suffering and continuously showing off his crimes. Lee also expressed that he had no intention of seeking parole and release, as he did not want to face the public condemnation for his crime like notorious child rapist Cho Doo-soon, whose release after serving his twelve-year jail term led to widespread public outrage.

Wrongful conviction of Yoon Sung-yeo After being sentenced to life imprisonment, Yoon Sung-yeo appealed his conviction on the grounds that police coerced him into giving false confessions through torture. Two days later, police announced that they had reached a provisional conclusion that Lee was responsible for the murder for which Yoon was convicted. Police said Lee's confession in the eighth murder "elaborately and coherently" described both the scene and the victim. This raised concerns Yoon had been the victim of a miscarriage of justice, with the district prosecutors' office confirming that Yoon endured cruel treatment by police at the time of his arrest and that the National Forensic Service report had been fraudulently written. In December 2019, the Gyeonggi South Provincial Police Agency booked and charged eight of the original investigators with abuse of power and illegal detention for allegedly physically abusing Yoon when he was a suspect, forcing him to make a false confession and falsifying investigative documents.

The court accepted Yoon's plea for a re-trial in January 2020. The final court hearing was held on November 2, 2020, where Lee stood as a witness confessing to the murder and describing the crime scene.

List of known victims The first 10 murders were part of the Hwaseong serial murders. Crime Date and time of crime (estimated) Date and time of discovery who served 19.5 years in jail before being released on parole in 2009. Memories of Murder (2003) Confession of Murder (2012) Gap-dong (2014) Signal (2016) Tunnel (2017) Criminal Minds (2017) Partners for Justice (2018) Signal (2018) Unknown Number (2019) Flower of Evil (2020) Taxi Driver (2021) The Scarecrow (2026)