Freezer Installed a Week Prior… Man Who Accompanied Victim to Paju Also Booked

[Anchor]

It has been revealed that the refrigerated warehouse at a cafe in Paju, Gyeonggi Province, where a woman in her 60s was found dead, was delivered and installed a week before the incident. Police have additionally booked a man who drove the victim from Seoul to Paju on the day of the incident and are investigating his possible connection to the counterfeit department store gift certificates found inside the freezer.

Reporter Cho Min-ki has the details.

[Reporter]

A large cargo truck carrying a huge white container moves down an alleyway.

When the truck returns about five hours later, it is empty.

On August 27, a man in his 30s surnamed Shin, the suspect in the Paju freezer murder case, brought the container-type freezer into the cafe a week before the incident occurred.

Residents said they found the sudden appearance of the freezer puzzling.

[Nearby Resident: We were puzzled too. It wasn't there at all. But we wondered why they brought in a freezer....]

The counterfeit department store gift certificates worth around 50 billion won, which were discovered alongside the body of the woman in her 60s inside the freezer, were reportedly ordered in July when Shin visited a printing shop, claiming they were needed for a movie shoot.

Police have booked another man, referred to as A, on charges related to the counterfeiting of the gift certificates.

A reportedly picked up the victim in his vehicle in Seoul on the day of the incident, dropped her off in Paju, after which the woman boarded the vehicle of cafe owner Shin.

A is also the person who notified the family that evening that they could not reach the victim.

Police have identified circumstances suggesting that A was involved in the production and distribution of the counterfeit gift certificates and are verifying his specific role.

As Shin gave false statements regarding the victim's whereabouts while she was missing, which disrupted the investigation, police are examining the credibility of his statements through mobile phone forensic analysis.

Amid the spread of the suspect Shin's real name and photos through social media, public attention is also focused on whether the police will officially disclose his identity.

(Camera: Kim Nam-sung | Video Editing: Choi Hye-ran)

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