South Korean police arrested 48-year-old Kim Il-gon on Thursday, a suspect in the Sept. 9 murder of a woman outside a discount store parking lot in Asan, South Korea. Kim said he did "nothing wrong." Photo by Yonhap
SEOUL, Sept. 17 (UPI) -- A South Korean man accused of killing a woman in an empty parking lot had 22 criminal convictions, including one for assault.
Police say Kim Il-gon, 48, was caught on video fatally stabbing a woman outside a discount store in Asan, South Chungcheong province on Sept. 9. The woman, identified only by her surname Joo, was attacked as she packed groceries into her van. The Korea Times reported the attacker threw Joo's body in the back of the van and set the vehicle on fire. Police arrived to find Joo stabbed in the neck and torso.
Police arrested Kim on Thursday after he broke into a veterinary hospital in Seoul and threatened a nurse with a knife while asking for a "euthanasia drug used on puppies," South Korean newspaper JoongAng Ilbo reported. Kim fled the scene but police apprehended him after a chase.
In a country where arrested suspects typically hide their faces from reporters' cameras, Kim identified himself and said that he did "nothing wrong."
Crimes in large parking lots outside retail centers have grown in number, according to South Korea's National Police Agency. Between 2012 and 2013, crime involving murder, sexual and other assault and theft rose from 2,902 to 3,194 cases, and the recent case has raised public fear over women's safety in parking lots located in underground facilities.
Yonhap reported Kim's name was missing from police records despite 22 criminal convictions because he did not provide a residential address after he was discharged from a prison in Daejeon in March 2013. Kim, previously convicted of theft and assault among other crimes, did not provide police with his address after his release, and police said on Thursday they do not have legal authority to track down a past offender.
Kim was accused of threatening another woman in a store parking lot with a knife and had driven away with her car on Aug. 24. He could have been apprehended faster if he had been in police records, Yonhap reported.
In 2014, nearly 16 percent, or 1,152 out of 7,310 repeat offenders in South Korea had not provided police with their address.
