Rapist flees a hospital and attacks one more victim

Daejeon police Tuesday said a sex offender who escaped from a local hospital while serving a 15-year jail term raped another woman while on the run and finally turned himself in.

During the single day he was on the country’s most wanted list, he held a woman captive for eight hours and raped her.

The 33-year-old man reportedly called the police around 6 p.m. Monday and showed up at the Daejeon Dunsan Police Precinct an hour later.

Kim Seon-yong, who was jailed for 15 years in June 2012 for rape, turned himself in out of fear he would face a heavier penalty if he stayed on the lam, according to the police.

Kim reportedly acknowledged the additional rape.

Police had been searching for Kim since Sunday afternoon, when he escaped from a university hospital in Daejeon around 2:15 p.m. He was receiving treatment for a ringing sound in his ear. Kim asked his minder to remove his handcuffs so that he could use the restroom and then escaped.

He was being held at the Institute of Forensic Psychiatry under the Ministry of Justice, a mental hospital in Gongju, South Chungcheong, that treats criminals with mental illnesses.

CCTV footage from the area showed Kim collecting clothes from a recycling bin at an apartment complex some 10 minutes afterward, and changing into them. He was seen in other footage approximately 30 kilometers (about 19 miles) away from the hospital on the road past midnight.

On Monday, he reached the elementary school that he graduated from in a section of Daejeon around 9:30 a.m., walked to a nearby store and threatened the female owner with a knife, according to police.

The woman was raped, and then held captive in the store for eight hours.

The victim, who police identified as a woman in her 20s, was said to have held a chief role in persuading Kim to call the police and give himself up.

Police said the Institute of Forensic Psychiatry in the Ministry of Justice took 90 minutes to inform them of the convict’s escape.

BY SHIN JIN-HO, LEE SUNG-EUN [lee.sungeun@joongang.co.kr]