Clothes of Murdered Children Discarded… Bereaved Families Outraged at Police

▲ Police investigating the motel in Hapsong-dong, Changwon, where a fatal stabbing occurred

It has been revealed that the clothes worn by the victims of the Changwon motel stabbing incident that occurred in December of last year were not utilized as investigative evidence and were instead discarded due to police negligence in management.

The bereaved families are expressing deep anger over their inability to recover the victims' clothes.

According to police and other sources on the 30th, the Masan Dongbu Police Station did not secure the clothes worn by the deceased victims as evidence while investigating an incident where a man in his 20s murdered two teenage middle school students and then jumped from a motel in Masanhoewon-gu, Changwon, on December 3 of last year.

In typical stabbing investigations, the clothes worn by victims are utilized as crucial evidence.

This is because bloodstains on the clothes and the extent of damage can help deduce the situation the victims faced at the time of the crime.

However, the police did not designate the clothes worn by the victims in the Changwon motel stabbing incident as seized items to be used in the investigation.

While the principle is to return belongings that are not seized items to the parties involved or their bereaved families, the police overlooked this during the initial investigation.

It was found that the clothes worn by the victims were damaged during the hospital examination process immediately following the incident, and the hospital, having received no request from the police regarding the preservation of belongings, discarded them.

Later, when the bereaved family demanded the return of the padded jacket and sneakers worn by the victim at the time of the incident, the police only then made inquiries regarding the belongings to the hospital and other entities.

The bereaved family claimed that aside from the clothes discarded by the hospital, other clothes left at the crime scene were also arbitrarily thrown away by a cleaning company due to the police's lax management.

The bereaved family, wishing to recover even the clothes of their dead children, expressed their frustration.

A bereaved family member who lost a child in this incident said, "It makes no sense that we cannot even receive the clothes our child wore due to the police's poor management," adding, "It makes an already severe wound even harder to bear."

They went on to ask, "The bereaved family of the victim in the Jang Yoon-ki case also failed to properly recover belongings due to police negligence. How can we know if there won't be another case like this?"

Previously, controversy arose over lax management of belongings when the police failed to return some clothing items worn by the victim, such as sneakers, socks, and tops, to the bereaved family following the Jang Yoon-ki case.

The police explained that they were overwhelmed at the time of the Changwon motel stabbing incident, which is why they did not designate the victims' clothes as seized items for evidence and were negligent in managing their belongings.

A police official stated, "With multiple victims, there were many areas to focus on, and since major direct evidence had already been secured, we were unable to pay attention to the victims' clothes."

Not a few reactions indicate that such police explanations are unacceptable.

A legal official pointed out, "It is hard to understand how investigative authorities allowed belongings that were not designated as seized items to be discarded without procedures such as the consent of the parties involved."

On December 3 of last year, a man in his 20s, A, swung a weapon at three male and female middle school students at a motel in Masanhoewon-gu, Changwon, killing two of them, inflicting serious injuries on one, and then jumping from the motel building to his death.

It was revealed that he was a probation subject who had been sentenced to five years in prison and a five-year disclosure and notification order for rape in July 2021, but he did not actually live at the address listed in the Sex Offender Notification e-Service.

Hours before the crime, he was also investigated by the police on charges of special intimidation after visiting the residence of another woman in his 20s while carrying a weapon, but he was released on the grounds that it did not meet the requirements for a flagrant offender or emergency arrest.

Although the police figured out that A was on probation, they did not notify the probation office of the investigation facts because there was no legal basis to do so.

(Photo: Yonhap News)

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