Clothes of Murdered Children Discarded… Bereaved Families Furious at Police

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 the police and other sources on this day (July 30), the Masan Dongbu Police Station did not secure the clothes worn by the deceased victims as evidence while investigating the incident in which a man in his 20s stabbed two middle school teenagers to death 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 clothing and the extent of damage to garments 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 at the time of the Changwon motel stabbing incident as seized items to be used for 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 aspect during the initial investigation.

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

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 places.

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

The bereaved families, who desperately want to get back even the clothes of their deceased children, express 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 poor police management," adding, "It is even harder given that our wounds are already so deep."

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

Previously, following the Jang Yoon-ki case, the police failed to return some clothing items worn by the victim, such as sneakers, socks, and tops, to the bereaved family, raising responsibility for poor management of belongings.

The police explained that they were overwhelmed at the time of the Changwon motel stabbing incident, failing to designate the victims' clothes as seized items for evidence and showing lax management of their belongings.

A police official stated, "With multiple victims, there were many aspects 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 source pointed out, "It is difficult to understand how investigative authorities allowed belongings not designated as seized items to be discarded without procedures such as obtaining consent from the parties involved."

On December 3 of last year, a man in his 20s, A, swung a weapon at three middle school students—two boys and a girl—at a motel in Masanhoewon-gu, Changwon, killing two of them, leaving one severely injured, and then jumping from the motel building to his death.

It was revealed that although he was a probation subject who had been sentenced to five years in prison for rape in July 2021 along with a five-year order to disclose and notify personal information, he did not actually live at the address listed in the Sex Offender Notification system.

He had also been investigated by the police on charges of special intimidation for visiting the residence of another woman in his 20s with a weapon hours before the crime, but was released on the grounds that it did not meet the requirements for apprehension of 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 because there was no legal basis to do so.

(Photo: Yonhap News)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.