Murdered South Korean woman found after 16 years encased in cement

A South Korean man has been arrested after confessing to murdering his girlfriend 16 years ago and entombing her body on his balcony under a layer of cement, police told AFP on Tuesday.

The man, who is now in his 50s, admitted to hitting the woman with a blunt object during a heated argument in his apartment in Geoje. Following her death, he placed her body in a large travel bag, which he then buried under bricks and cement on his balcony. police said.

The body was found last month after a worker who was searching for water leaks found the travel bag.

Upon inspection, police found the woman’s body “preserved to some extent”. Local media reported that the body was partially preserved and identified through fingerprint analysis. An autopsy confirmed the cause of death as blunt force trauma to the head.

During a 2011 missing person inquiry, the man told police they had “broken up” and the case remained unsolved due to a lack of evidence.

A police official told reporters that the body was not discovered earlier as it had been fitted into the small balcony space, and that the room was “virtually empty since 2016”.

The suspect, referred to as Mr. A, was not residing in the apartment when the body was uncovered but was quickly located and arrested. He revealed that he had lived with the woman for about five years before the tragic incident in October 2008. After the argument that led to her death, he continued to reside in the apartment for an additional eight years until his arrest on drug charges in 2016. Since then, the landlord of the apartment had left it empty, using it as storage space.

The case remained unsolved until this year when the building’s owner initiated waterproofing work, leading to the grim discovery. The man was brought in for questioning and eventually confessed to the murder.

A police official from Gyeongnam Provincial Police told AFP the investigation and questioning is nearly over and the man will be “sent to prosecution soon”.