▲ This photo shows a cafe in Paju, Gyeonggi Province, where the frozen body of a woman in her 60s was discovered. A sign reads that the store is closed due to internal circumstances.
Police are investigating after the frozen body of a woman in her 60s was found inside the freezer of a cafe in Paju, Gyeonggi Province.
Police have arrested a man in his 30s who operates the cafe as a suspect and are investigating him in custody.
Around midnight on the 4th, a missing person report for a woman in her 60s, designated as A, was filed in Seoul.
Tracing her whereabouts based on the location of A's mobile phone and other data, police discovered A's body at around 2:00 p.m. on the same day inside the cafe's freezer located in Munsan-eup, Paju.
Police identified the suspect as a man in his 30s, designated as B, who is the owner of the cafe and was with the victim at the time of her disappearance.
B was arrested in Yeongdeungpo, Seoul, around the time the body was discovered.
Subsequently, police requested an arrest warrant for B on charges of kidnapping and murder.
The Goyang branch of the Uijeongbu District Court issued the warrant yesterday (the 6th).
It is reported that A and B met for the first time at the cafe on the 3rd.
A met with B, who was involved in the practice of cashing out gift certificates, to discuss matters related to gift certificates.
It was found that the two did not know each other previously.
Police have captured circumstances indicating that B told A, "The gift certificates are in the storage," and led her into the freezer, and are investigating the matter.
A's body was found frozen, suggesting it had been left in the freezer for a considerable period of time.
The freezer is a horizontally long container-type structure measuring around 30 square meters.
It was investigated to be located right next to the main building of B's cafe.
However, it has not yet been confirmed whether B murdered A inside the freezer and left the body there, or if he locked a living A inside the freezer, leading to her death.
Police stated that the exact cause of death and the details of the crime need to be further verified through an autopsy and other investigations.
The cafe is known to be a popular spot that attracts many customers even from outside Paju.
Investigations showed that B told his employees not to report to work starting from the 3rd and closed the cafe.
(Photo: Yonhap News)
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