Tag: crime

The Korea Herald has a long article about violence against women in Korea. In the article there is an idea on making people accused of stalking wear police issued GPS bracelets. This would allow the person they are stalking to know where that person is. This is an interesting idea, but I would like to see the safeguards on how abuse of making people wear GPS bracelets would be prevented:

Still images from CCTV footage show a man violently attacking a woman in Busan in May 2022. (Courtesy of JTBC)

In a bid to take a more systemic approach, South Korea is working to determine what behaviors constitute an abusive pattern in offenders, and how to adequately train judges, court staff, police officers and other support organizations to identify the risk factors and protections needed.

There is also room for improvement when it comes to the efficacy of temporary restraining orders in deterring offenders from making contact with victims. There have been repeated calls, including from the unnamed victim of the roundhouse kick incident to allow police to use GPS tracking devices on both gender-based crime and stalking offenders and their victims. Under the current system, only victims are able to use the devices to alert police in an emergency, and these devices cannot detect the location of the offenders automatically.

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link.

Another crazy guy with a mental illness has launched a stabbing attack in South Korea:

A local court issued a warrant Saturday to arrest a man suspected of stabbing a teacher at a high school multiple times.

The Daejeon District Court granted a warrant to formally arrest the suspect in his late 20s on charges of attempted murder, citing the risk of flight.

The man stabbed the teacher, including in the face and chest, at a high school in Daejeon, 139 kilometers south of Seoul on Friday. He was quoted as telling police that he was a student of the teacher in the past, but his claim has yet be verified.

The teacher, 49, underwent urgent surgery after the stabbing, but remains in critical condition.

Police said the suspect was diagnosed with schizophrenia and depression in recent years, but did not receive any treatment.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but with all the media attention these attacks are getting, authorities are worried about copycat attacks now by other mentally ill people.

In the U.S. this crazy guy with a reported mental illness could have gone to Walmart and bought a gun. At least in South Korea the mentally ill can’t purchase a gun to create far larger carnage than what this guy caused with a knife:

A man rammed a car onto a sidewalk Thursday in the South Korean city of Seongnam, then stepped out of the vehicle and began stabbing people at a shopping mall, leaving at least 14 people wounded. 

Just hours after South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol on Friday called for “ultra-strong” law enforcement measures in response to that attack, police found themselves chasing the suspect in another stabbing incident at a high school in Daejeon city.

Cho Byeong-tae, an official at the Daejeon metropolitan police department, said the attack at Songchon High School left at least one teacher hurt. He did not identify the victim or provide details about the victim’s health. (…..)

Authorities arrested a 22-year-old suspect at the scene and were questioning him. Police did not identify the man or offer any immediate information about a potential motive.

According to Park Gyeong-won, an official at Gyeonggi’s Bundang district police station, the suspect during police interviews talked incoherently and said he was being stalked by an unspecified source. The suspect’s family told police he had a history of mental illness.

Associated Press via a reader tip

You can read more at the link.

Here is another infant murder case in Korea this time involving a father and grandmother:

 A father was put under emergency detention Thursday on charges of killing a newborn and abandoning the body in collusion with the baby’s maternal grandmother, police said, the latest in a string of child abuse cases involving unregistered babies.

The man in his 40s was first taken into custody in Yongin, south of Seoul, in the wee hours of Thursday on charges of murder and corpse abandonment before the grandmother in her 60s was detained later in the day on the same charges, police said.

The pair allegedly killed the newborn not long after he was born in March 2015 and abandoned his body on a nearby hill. How the baby was killed was not known, but a direct means could have been used as murder charges were brought against them.

They reportedly committed the crime while the baby’s mother was recovering after labor, and the husband allegedly lied to his wife, saying the baby was going to die soon as he was born sick.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

This is really morbid:

The whereabouts of another unregistered baby is unknown, officials said Thursday, after two undocumented babies were found dead in a refrigerator, revealing serious problems with the country’s birth registration and child abuse prevention systems.

The Gyeonggi Nambu Provincial Police Agency said it booked a woman in her 20s on charges of abandoning her baby. She claimed she gave away the baby to a stranger she got to know online a month after giving birth in December 2021, but police believe her statement is suspicious.

The incident is the second such case after a woman in her 30s was taken into custody Wednesday for killing two babies shortly after their births in 2018 and 2019, and storing their bodies in a fridge in her apartment in Suwon, just south of Seoul.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

This guy obviously needs to be working in another industry other than being a caregiver to disabled people:

A convalescent hospital caregiver has been apprehended for inserting pieces of toilet mat into the anus of a disabled patient, police said Thursday.

The caregiver, known only as a 68-year-old man, is accused of inserting four toilet mat pieces into the anus of the 64-year-old Parkinson’s disease patient at a convalescent hospital in Incheon, 27 kilometers west of Seoul, on several occasions between late April and early May, police said.

The suspect charged with violating the disability welfare law reportedly told police that he committed the offense as the patient had watery stools and needed frequent diaper changes.

He is said to have cut the toilet mats into squares about 25 centimeters in width and in length and used them to wipe the patient’s body.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

This is a pretty bad case of arson, fortunately no one was killed:

Vice Minister of the Interior and Safety Han Chang-seob, left, and Incheon Mayor Yoo Jeong-bok inspect the charred ruins of Hyundae Market in Dong District, Incheon on Sunday. [YONHAP]

A man detained Sunday morning on suspicion of starting a massive overnight blaze that burned down more than 50 stores in an Incheon market set fire to five different locations inside and near the market, according to police.  
   
The suspect, whom the Incheon Jungbu Police Precinct described only as a man in his 40s, is accused of starting three fires inside the Hyeondae Market in Songnim-dong, Dong District, at around 11:38 p.m. the previous day.  
   
Police said closed-circuit television (CCTV) footage recorded by street cameras outside the market showed the man also setting fire to garbage awaiting collection next to a church outside the market, then to a small cargo truck parked nearby.

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link.

If this guy is a career criminal why do they keep letting him out? Age should not play into this if he keeps committing crimes:

The Supreme Court has upheld the 1 1/2-year prison sentence for Cho Se-hyeong, an 85-year-old notorious burglar, convicted of stealing again just a month after being released from prison, court officials said Saturday. 

In January 2022, Cho was arrested for stealing precious items worth 27.5 million won (US$21,020) from a luxury country home in Yongin, 40 kilometers south of Seoul.

He was initially sentenced to two years in prison by a lower court. An appellate court later reduced the sentence to 1 1/2 years considering his age, health and circumstances. (…..)

Cho gained notoriety in the 1970s and 80s as the “Great Thief” for his tendency to rob only wealthy and powerful individuals, and use some of the stolen money for charitable purposes. 

The burglar was imprisoned multiple times in the 1970s, and in 1982, he received a 15-year prison sentence for stealing from the homes of wealthy people and high-ranking officials.

After his release, Cho claimed to have turned his life around and was involved in missionary work and served as an adviser to a security company. 

However, he was caught burglarizing an empty house in Tokyo in 2001 and imprisoned five more times later in and near Seoul — for theft in 2005, 2013, 2015 and 2019, and for arranging the dealings of stolen goods in 2010.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

Via a reader tip comes news that quite possibly the most infamous criminal in USFK history has passed away at age 50 in West Virginia:

Kenneth Lee “Kennet” Markle, III, 50, of Keyser, WV, died Tuesday, February 14, 2023 in Keyser.

Born on June 7, 1972 in Wurzburg, Germany, he was a son of Kenneth L. Markle, Jr. and Helen M. “Mickey” (Hickey) Markle, of Keyser. He was preceded in death by an infant brother, Jarrod Markle and his grandparents, Kenneth L. Markle, Sr., Wanda P. Markle and John and Edith Hickey.

Kennet was a 1990 graduate of Keyser High School and was employed as a project manager in the cellular communications industry. He was an avid Pittsburgh Steelers fan.

Tribute Archive

For those that don’t know who Kenneth Markle is, I recommend reading my below prior posting about him:

GI Flashbacks: The 1992 Private Kenneth Markle Murder Case

I also recommend reading the below prior posting where Markle’s alleged ex-girlfriends describe what he is like in the comments section:

Convicted USFK Murderer Speaks Out

I have actually met Markle before when he was still being held in the foreigner prison down in Cheonan. He was the person that used to pick up the mail from people that would go and check up on the prisoners there. He was actually very polite when I interacted with him. However, since his release from Korean prison in 2006 he went on to continue a life of crime in West Virginia:

Two Mineral County men were arrested Monday when they were served arrest warrants by Keyser Police at two locations.

Kenneth Lee Markle, 44, of Keyser, was charged with 24 counts of nighttime burglary and 74 counts of unauthorized use of a debit card, police said.

Markle was arrested at a North Water Street residence late Monday and granted pre-trial release after posting $15,000 bond, police said. 

Cumberland Times-News

Markle actually contacted me a few years after he got out claiming his innocence and that if I read the court transcripts I would understand he was not a murderer. I offered to post the complete transcripts on the ROK Drop and he never sent them to me. His side of the story is that he hit the victim in the head with a coke bottle after she attacked him and was alive when left the room. He claims someone else killed her and violated her body. He told himself that bogus story for so long he probably actually believed it after a while.

Judging by this collage of mugshots that ROK Drop commenter Chickenhead has put together, I would not be surprised that besides being a thief that Markle was a meth-head as well:

This officially closes the chapter on Kenneth Markle and hopefully those impacted by his crimes get some solace that he will not be able to victimize anyone else ever again.