The Korea Herald

피터빈트

Busan murder suspect accused of stabbing victim over 110 times

By Jung Min-kyung

Published : June 27, 2023 - 15:19

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Murder suspect Jung Yoo-jung, wearing a hat and a mask, leaves a police detention center to be taken to the prosecutors office in Busan on June 2. (Yonhap) Murder suspect Jung Yoo-jung, wearing a hat and a mask, leaves a police detention center to be taken to the prosecutors office in Busan on June 2. (Yonhap)

The suspect in the murder of a university student in Busan is believed to have stabbed the victim over 110 times, prosecutors investing the case revealed Tuesday.

Suspect Jung Yoo-jung, 23, is accused of attacking the victim with a weapon she prepared, dismembering the body and disposing of it in the Nakdong River near Yangsan, according to Busan District Prosecutor's Office.

Jung was arrested last month. She confessed to the killing and said she did so "out of curiosity about murder."

Busan prosecutors also found that Jung called her father via phone before the murder, during which she made remarks that sounded like death threats. She also looked up a word for killing close relatives on an online search engine, officials added.

Jung's father abandoned her when she was 6 years old. Her mother left when she was 1. She was raised by her grandfather.

Jung is suspected to have chosen the victim -- a female university student around her age who lived alone -- after contacting over 55 tutors via an online app, posing as a mother trying to hire a tutor for her middle-school student daughter.

On May 26, the day of the crime, she switched roles from mother to daughter. Dressed up in school uniform, she visited the victim's house for a tutoring appointment, according to the Busan Metropolitan Police Agency.

Police recently disclosed her name, age and facial photo in consideration of the seriousness and brutality of her crime.