The police investigation of a recent rape and murder case of a teenage girl in Busan is facing difficulties due to lack of evidence.

The 33-year-old, Kim Gil-tae, caught Wednesday, has denied the charges and remained silent during interrogation, said officials.

He only admitted stealing money and keys in a nearby hair shop while he was hiding from police.

Investigators requested an arrest warrant on Thursday, based on genetic evidence such as Kim’s DNA found in the body of the 13-year-old victim, Lee Yu-ri.

The police, however, have so far failed to collect definitive evidence linking him to the murder.

She was found dead last Saturday inside a rooftop water tank, after disappearing on Feb. 24. Her body was hidden and covered with lime powder.  [Korea Herald]

I just can’t imagine that the Korean police would bungle this investigation enough that they won’t convict this guy.  Could you imagine the up roar if this guy went free?

Court-Martial Results for February 2010

At a summary court-martial on 3 February 2010, PVT Nichlos S. Duke, Delta Battery, 6th Battalion, 52d Air Missile Defense, 35th Air Defense Artillery, 8th Army, was convicted of disobeying a lawful order, two specifications of disobeying a lawful general regulation, and being drunk and disorderly.  He was sentenced to confinement for 30 days.

At a special court-martial on 12 February 2010, PFC Kyle G. Tavel, 55th Military Police Company, 94th Military Police Battalion, 2d Infantry Division, was convicted of indecent acts and dereliction in the performance of his duties.  He was sentenced to reduction to Private E1, confinement for 90 days, and to be discharged with a bad-conduct discharge.

ROK Criminal Prosecution Results for February 2010

In Gunsan Branch of Jeonju District Court on 29 January 2010, Captain Michael Kwon, 8th MDOS, was convicted of DUI.  His adjudged sentence was a 1,000,000 Won fine.

In Seoul Central District Court on 3 February 2010, SPC Stacy L. B. Bernard, HHC, 524th MI Battalion, was convicted of infliction of bodily injury.  Her adjudged sentence was a 2,000,000 Won fine.

In Seoul Central District Court on 4 February 2010, SGT Gary D. Rhodes, A Btry, 1/15th FA, 2d Infantry Division, was convicted of infliction of bodily injury.  His adjudged sentence was a 1,000,000 Won fine.

In Seoul Central District Court on 5 February 2010, MSgt Solomon B. Plummer, SOCKOR, was convicted of traffic law violations resulting in personal injury.  His adjudged sentence was a 3,000,000 Won fine.

In Suwon District Court on 24 February 2010, SFC Vicente B. Lalap, 3d BCD-K, was convicted of infliction of bodily injury.  His adjudged sentence was a 3,000,000 Won fine.

A 13-year-old girl was found dead in Busan 11 days after she was kidnapped, police said Saturday.

According to officers, the remains of the girl, identified as Lee Yoo-ri, were discovered inside an abandoned water tank just 100 meters away from her home. Lee was kidnapped at around 7 p.m. on Feb. 24.

Her body showed signs of being strangled after being raped several times. Convicted rapist Kim Kil-tae, 33, has been put on the wanted list as a prime suspect.

This case is an eerie reminder of when two girls were snatched in Anyang, Gyeonggi Province, on Christmas Day in 2008 and killed by a 39-year-old man.

Police found Lee’s body, while inspecting the rooftop of a house in Deokpo-dong, Sasang-gu, Busan, at 9:20 p.m. Saturday. The container in which her body was found was a blue water tank measuring 1.25 meters high and 88 centimeters wide. Her body was wrapped in a black plastic bag, they said.

The police officer who first found the body was quoted as saying, “When I removed the top of the water tank, one of her legs was seen protruding through a plastic wrap.”  [Korea Times]

This just has to be just devastating for the girl’s family.  Reading about crimes like this just continues to re-enforce my belief that a sex criminal like this should be castrated.

Sometimes, stories about video game addiction are alarmist malarkey to bump up ratings. Other times, they’re just flat-out tragic: The Next Web reports that a couple in South Korea has been arrested for allegedly allowing their prematurely born baby to starve to death while they were busy tending to a virtual kid at an Internet café.

The couple reportedly fed their baby only once a day between 12-hour stretches of play-time with a popular role-playing game called Prius Online, in which they were busy raising a virtual kid. The autopsy report of their baby showed the death was a result of a long period of malnutrition.

“The couple seemed to have lost their will to live a normal life, because they didn’t have jobs and gave birth to a premature baby,” said South Korean police officer Chung Jin-won. “They indulged themselves in the online game of raising a virtual character so as to escape from reality, which led to the death of their real baby.”  [1UP. com]

Alleged members of the "Bling Ring," clockwise from top left: Diana Tamayo, Johnny Ajar, Alexis Neiers, Roy Lopez Jr., Courtney Ames and Nick Prugo.

They eventually began to recruit other people in their crime spree to include helping to sell off some of the goods like watches and jewelery they were stealing.  The interview with Prugo was interesting in the fact that it showed that these burglaries was motivated by more than celebrity obsession, these teenagers also had a drug problem and like many thieves they were using the stolen goods to also finance their drug addiction.  Also of interest was that Lee and Prugo first met in an alternative high school for troubled teens which shows these two have had plenty of issues in the past.  Prugo claims to be a shy person who first became part of the “in crowd” that Lee was part of when they met at this high school:

Struggling, Prugo transferred to an alternative school, Indian Hills High in Agoura Hills, Calif. There he met Rachel Lee, who he said would change his life.

“She was always really nice to me, always kind of took me under her wing,” Prugo said.

Lee was everything Prugo wasn’t. She was upper-class, popular, the consummate “it” girl who would bring Prugo into the Calabasas inner circle and introduce him to the vibrant L.A. party scene.

She also had a history of trouble with the law and was on probation for petty theft. “Their relationship is very interesting,” said Nancy Jo Sales, a writer who profiled the alleged burglars for Vanity Fair. “She was this very powerful girl, who is popular and has this kind of wild streak. He, on the other hand, is this very timid, searching kind of personality. He’s friendless and they get together and trouble ensues.”

Prugo got to know Lee’s friends.

“She introduced me to her friends and they were all pretty and like her and we clicked,” said Prugo. “I’m hanging out with all these pretty women and, you know, [it] made me feel good.”

His new social network included a teen named Courtney Ames and reality star hopefuls Alexis and Gabby Neiers. Prugo was suddenly thrust into the L.A. nightlife. He started doing drugs, he said.

“I started stealing from my parents for money for these drugs,” Prugo said.

Prugo says he suddenly found himself in a daze of boozy, coke-induced all-nighters.  [ABC News 20/20]

What I didn’t like about Prugo in the interview was that he was trying to blame everything on Rachel Lee and he was just following her around because he was infatuated with her.

Anyway besides 20/20, Vanity Fair also did a feature this week on the “Bling Ring”, and what I found surprising by this article was how easy it was to rob these homes.  Some of these homes they literally walked up to them knocked on the door to see if someone was home and then rob them if no one was there.  Some of the homes actually had unlocked doors for them to gain access with.  You would think these rich celebrities would have an expensive security system or even a night watchman on their properties?  I also had to laugh that they robbed Paris Hilton because they figured she was dumb:

They picked Paris Hilton as their first victim, Prugo said, because they figured she was “dumb.” “Like, who would leave a door unlocked? Who would leave a lot of money lying around?”

One night in October of 2008, he says, he and Lee entered Hilton’s sprawling tile-roofed mansion in a gated community in the Hollywood Hills, opening the front door with a key they had found under the mat. “Stupid,” Prugo said, shrugging. He said he found the sensation of suddenly being in Hilton’s home “horrifying. There was that percentage of ‘Wow, this is Paris Hilton’s house,’ but as soon as I put my foot in the door I was just wanting to run out.”

He says he served as a lookout at the top of the stairs while Lee went into Hilton’s bedroom to search for valuables. “I was sweating unnaturally. Every five minutes, I was yelling, Let’s get the fuck out of here. She was like, It’s fine, it’s fine, let’s keep going.”

Lee took some expensive bras and a designer dress that night, he says (he can’t remember which; there would be so many). They took a bottle of Grey Goose vodka from Hilton’s “nightclub room.” They took “crumpled cash,” he claims, “fifties, hundreds,” from Hilton’s purses.

The idea was to take so little that the heiress wouldn’t notice—and so they could come back again. Hilton actually didn’t notice or at least didn’t report any of the Bling Ring burglaries until December 19, 2008, when Roy Lopez allegedly stole close to $2 million worth of her jewelry, stuffing it into one of her Louis Vuitton tote bags.  [Vanity Fair]

Readers probably won’t be surprised to find out that Paris Hilton is a drug user either:

“We found about, like, five grams of coke in Paris’s house” on another night, Prugo told police; he says they snorted it and left. Then they “drove around Mulholland, having the best time of our lives.”

Hilton’s lawyer denied this allegation by Prugo.

Another interesting fact from the article was that Rachel Lee’s mother is a North Korean immigrant:

She was a fashionable girl whom Prugo and Neiers describe as “spoiled” and “haughty.” She had troubles of her own; apparently she didn’t get along with her mother, Vickie Kwon, a North Korean immigrant and owner of two centers of the tutoring company Kumon. Prugo claims, “Rachel hates her stepfather,” whom her mother married when Lee was in her early teens. (Neither Lee nor Kwon responded to requests for comment.)  [Vanity Fair]

Since Rachel Lee is 19 years old that must mean that her mom immigrated to the US around 1990 right before the Great Famine happened in North Korea and the mass defections from the country we see today began to happen.  So there must be an interesting back story to how her defected from North Korea back then.  Rachel’s dad is a South Korean businessman David Lee who lives in Las Vegas.  Rachel moved in with him in the months before her arrest.

Anyway read the rest of the Vanity Fair article but this statement here from Prugo pretty much sums him up:

He said he believes that confessing was “the turning point in my life. I want to make it clear that everything I had in my possession I gave back. It was really hard for me to do that, but the stuff wasn’t mine anyway, so I’m a piece of shit for taking it.

Inside the packed court house Markle denied he had tortured and killed Ms. Yun.  He insisted that she had attacked him with a Coke bottle and that he was only defending himself when he struck her back.[7]  ”I struck her four times, but I’m denying she was dead when I left the room.”[6]  He claimed that he afterwards tried to revive her.  He also denied trying to have sex with her and alluded to another soldier that he said may have been responsible for her death.  He claimed that he and the other soldier had argued over who would take her home.  [Marmot's Hole]

Here is the name of the other soldier he claims is responsible for the murder:

This hearing, however, he appears to have given more information.  For the first time the name of the soldier he suggested might be responsible for her death was mentioned – Spc. Jason Lambert.  According to Markle he watched Lambert enter Ms. Yun’s room after he left.  He also said the Lambert indicated to him that Yun was his girlfriend and was angry that Markle had gone to her room.  Markle claimed he had not known the woman before that night, but saw her staggering drunkenly down a street in the city after he left the club.  He offered to help her get home and she accepted.  He said they were confronted on the street by the soldier he identified as Lamber, who said he knew the woman and would take her home.  Markle said he refused, and Lambert left.   Lambert returned a short time later and demanded that “I come outside and fight him.” Markle said they did fight briefly and when he went back inside the room Yun began slapping and clawing him, inflicting several minor wounds.  He said he took the bottle from her and hit her “only hard enough to make her stop.”  He said she fell to the floor unconscious and bleeding.  He then tried to rouse her, but couldn’t.  [Marmot's Hole]

Make sure to read Robert’s entire posting because it is an interesting to include an ongoing conversation in the comments section.

ROK Drop readers may remember this posting I did over three years ago that drew a comment from Markle proclaiming his innocence. This is what Markle had to say:

A friend of mine let me know that there were all kinds of interesting things being written about me on this site. I had a little time to waste, so I sat down recently and started reading. And laughing. At first, I was amused. Then it became nearly hysterical. Far too many comments have been made for me to try to respond to each one. Instead, I’ll make a few general statements and be done with it. I wasted too much time overseas to spend any more doing this. For the record, I didn’t kill ANYONE. I was in the vicinity. Had contact of a non-sexual nature with the young woman and left the area. I do not know who committed the crime. I was identified as being seen with her, was arrested, interrogated and bullied into signing a confession I could not read or understand. Thus, the basis of my conviction. I was 19 years old, scared, alone and helpless. I never had a chance of “proving” anything, let alone my innocence. I’ve made very little noise about the ordeal since I’ve returned to the United States. Believe me, I wanted to. I wanted to shout it from the rooftops, file lawsuits, get the media involved… Anything to “prove” I didn’t do it.

What good would it do me now? The 14 years are gone. I can live for the future or let the past kill me. I chose the former. That might not be the right choice, but I took some good advice and chose not to let the past dictate my future. I can sleep at night with my choice. As for all the comments made on this site by “ex’s” and other acquaintances, the only one one I’ll acknowlege is John Ortega. Yes, he was my room mate in Korea. He was like a brother to me, a truly trusted friend who I still think of occasionally. I appreciate that he even tried to contact me. He was a good man then and, I’ve no doubt, still is. Hope you are doing well, John. Thanks for coming to see me at Red Cloud and playing Spades through the bars of my cell. I’ll never forget it. Onward… Yes, I could post transcripts of my trials on the site. Copies of statements and pictures and just about anything else you folks would want to see. Some of it damaging, some vindicating. Wouldn’t matter. The debate would rage. I’m not a “sexual deviant” or a predator. Never had legal trouble before Korea or since. Not a pothead or a woman-beater.

I work my ass off to make up for lost time and I’m determined to do it. Some of you call me names, say I should get “the chair” or I’m lucky to be free. Say I manipulate or deceive or…well, I don’t need to try to repeat all of it. I don’t care what any of you think of me. I did my time, justified or not. All of you with nothing better to do than crucify me should ask yourselves what good you’re doing wasting your time on this site. Go to work. Take care of your kids. Do something productive. Be happy that you have the freedom to do it. I know what it’s like not to have it. It’s miserable.

The posting drew even more comments from supporters and detractors that have known Markle over the years to include a number of ex-girlfriends and fellow soldiers that served with him.  Like I told Markle before, he is the one convicted of murder and if he says he is innocent it is up to him to convince people otherwise.  He can start by posting the transcripts he keeps claiming will show that he is innocent.

My offer to post them here on this site still stands so everyone can have the complete information to draw their own conclusions on whether he is innocent or not.  As long as he keeps avoiding posting the transcripts I will continue to believe he is guilty of the crime he was convicted of.

Technology brings an ever-more sense of reality to video games. Some people, especially those who are in the young impressionable age group, are addicted to this virtual world where they can get away with murder. In some extreme cases, these addicts act out on their deadly impulses. But still there are few legal measures to keep them at bay.

Experts treat game addiction like alcoholism or drug use, saying that treatment can help addicts clean up their act but they remain prone to relapses.

Last Wednesday, a 22-year-old man was arrested for killing his mother for telling him not to play games.

According to Yangju Police, the suspect by the name of Oh stabbed his mother several times while she was taking a nap.

He was quoted as saying, “I was enraged at her constant nagging.” A police officer said that, after he killed his mother, Oh watched TV in a living room for hours and played an Internet-based game at a game arcade near his home using his mother’s credit card.   [Korea Times]

David Nam’s long-running effort to escape trial for a 1996 killing during a botched Olney home invasion came to a close yesterday with a jury verdict that would put him in prison for the rest of his life.

Nam, 32, apparently led a law-abiding life after he forfeited $1 million bail and fled to South Korea in 1998. He married, had three children, and worked as an English teacher at a private school near Seoul.

But that life ended at 3:20 p.m. yesterday, when a Common Pleas Court jury of eight women and four men found him guilty of second-degree murder in the Aug. 16, 1996, killing of Anthony Schroeder, 77, a retired Acme Markets warehouse worker.

Nam, a thin, 6-foot-1 man wearing a black suit and horn-rim glasses, seemed to show no emotion as the jury announced the verdict.

Nor did his sister – his only relative living in the United States – who attended the trial yesterday for the first time. She left court afterward without speaking or giving her name.  [Philly.com via reader tip]

Read the rest, but the guy is going to get a life sentence without parole.  Nam did more than just kill man during a botch robbery.  This guy also cost his family $100,000 in bail money and were forced to renounce their US citizenship and return to South Korea.  He now also leaves a wife and three kids in South Korea fatherless due to his actions.  It is a bit surprising how easily this guy was able to hide in plain site in South Korea while wanted for murder.  Fortunately the FBI finally caught up with him and convinced the ROK government to extradite him back to the US.

The discovery of 17 small bags of marijuana hidden in a taxi cab at Camp Casey has authorities investigating whether the Korean driver was a middle man in a scheme to sell the drug to soldiers on base, police said.“The pot was evenly divided into different [plastic bags], making it look like it was ready for sale to buyers,” a Dongducheon police spokesman said.

The investigation began after U.S. military police pulled over the 39-year-old driver Monday night for speeding while driving his cab on base, the spokesman said.

His car was searched after the driver refused to show police his license, ID and base pass as requested, the spokesman said. Nearly 50 grams (about 1.75 ounces) of marijuana were found in bags hidden around the vehicle, including inside an eyeglass case, a jewelry box and a locked container, he said.

“He claimed that it was not his pot, but that some U.S. soldier riding his taxi the day before left it,” the spokesman said. “And, he said he smoked the pot only once at an off-post cemetery solely out of curiousity.”  [Stars & Stripes]

Read the rest at the link, but this guy is obviously full of crap.

Five elementary-school principals have been charged with taking bribes from a consignment company which ran after-school tutorial classes in their schools.

The Seoul Southern Prosecutors’ Office indicted the principals without physical detention on Wednesday, on charges of receiving bribes from a man surnamed Lee, 58, the head of consignment company A, which ran the after-school classes. Lee was also indicted without detention yesterday.

According to prosecutors, the principals each took a total of around 7 million won ($5,983) to 20 million won in three to 16 separate payments. The payments started in April 2003 and continued into September last year.

“Some of the principals asked for 10,000 won for each student enrolled in the after-school classes,” said an official at the prosecutors’ office. Students who enrolled in A’s classes paid an average 100,000 won each, which means the principals pocketed 10 percent of their payments.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]