On Monday, November 2, 2020,  Lee Chun-jae confessed in court to over a dozen murders. Lee committed 14 murders over the past 3 decades.

The-57-year old expressed his surprise that he wasn’t caught sooner. According to CNN, Lee stated “I didn’t think the crimes would be buried forever” in a Suwon court.

The confession was made in front of Yoon (whose full name cannot be disclosed due to South Korean laws) who was convicted of one of the murders. 

Yoon served 20 years in prison for the rape and murder of a thirteen-year old girl in 1988. He was finally released in 2008.

That murder is one out of the ten killings that happened between 1986 and 1991. These killings were dubbed as the Hwaseong murders after where they took place.

The remaining nine Hwaseong murders were later revisited by director Bong Joon Ho in a 2003 film called Memories of Murder.

Last year new DNA evidence was found on an article of clothing that belonged to a victim that linked Lee with some of the killings, which prompted the police to start revisiting the cases.

“Crimes happened around me and I didn’t try hard to hide things so I thought I would get caught easily.” Lee also stated in the article. “I bumped into detectives all the time but they always asked me about other people around me.” He continued. 

When asked Lee about why he killed the little girl he said “It was an impulsive act.”. Lee showed no remorse when talking about killing her. Lee has since apologized to Yoon and all the victims’ family.

Even though Lee has confessed to all crimes he can not be prosecuted because the statute of limitations has expired. 

Lee still remains in prison due to the rape and murder of his sister-in-law in 1994. Lee has been in prison for 26 years and will continue serving his life sentence. 

The Suwon police also issued a formal apology for not catching Lee sooner. Police chief Bae Yong-ju stated in an article by The Jakarta Post that, “His psychopathic tendencies were evident, as he was unable to empathize with the victims’ pain and sufferings at all and continuously showed off his crimes,”. 

During their investigation, they had a record number of officers working on one case. They even investigated around 21,000 suspects and compared the fingerprints of about 20,000 more with no success.