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Killer of two girls 'influenced by Internet porn films'
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Sat, Apr 12, 2008
The Straits Times
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SEOUL - A SOUTH Korean man accused of murdering two schoolgirls and cutting up their bodies had watched 'snuff' films downloaded from the Internet, prosecutors said yesterday.
Jeong Seong Hyeon, 39, had repeatedly watched films purporting to show actual murders, said Mr Chong Byong Doo, a senior prosecutor based in Suwon, in the western province of Gyeonggi.
Prosecutors yesterday charged Jeong with abduction, rape, murder and concealing the bodies, Yonhap news agency reported. The girls had disappeared last Christmas.
Jeong was arrested early last month, soon after the dismembered bodies of the victims, aged nine and 11, were found in some surrounding remote hills.
| He has since confessed to killing another woman in her 40s who went missing in the province in 2004.
'Jeong has, over the past 10 years, watched not only a variety of Internet pornographic videos but also repeatedly watched about 70 snuff films downloaded from the Internet,' Mr Chong said.
'Under the films' influence, he enticed the victims to his home on impulse to satiate his loneliness and sexual desire on Christmas night.'
According to a psychological test, Jeong has anti-social personality disorder and traits of sadism and paedophilia. But he did not lack the ability to judge or to make a decision, the prosecutor was quoted as saying.
As a child, Jeong had been repeatedly beaten by his father, who had divorced his mother. His relationships with women ended badly and he developed a deep hostility towards women, Mr Chong said.
Jeong worked as a 'replacement driver', making his living by sending inebriated people and their cars home.
He lived alone in the same neighbourhood as the two girls.
Jeong was tracked down after police found blood traces of the two girls in the trunk of a sedan he had rented the day the girls went missing, Korean media reported.
The case, and a separate attempted abduction of a child by another man, shocked parents who began hiring private security guards at some schools.
The Justice Ministry is drafting a Bill authorising tougher penalties for those who commit crimes against children.
Under its provisions, people who sexually assault and kill children aged under 13 would face either the death penalty - which has not been used for a decade - or life imprisonment.
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
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