Student held for corpse defilement

An apparently mentally disturbed 18-year-old student was arrested yesterday for raping the corpse of a 69-year-old woman after she committed suicide by jumping from her apartment in Cheongju, North Chungcheong.

According to the Cheongnam District Police, the suspect, identified as A, called police early Monday morning saying he had discovered the body of a woman in a flowerbed in front of an apartment building while walking around town at 3 a.m.

An autopsy of the woman’s corpse later that day disclosed that she had been raped and stabbed several times.

The police arrested the student yesterday on a charge of desecration of a corpse and put him into custody.

The charge of rape wasn’t applied, police said, because the woman was dead before the act.

During questioning, the student said he had no motive for his actions, according to police, and that he simply wanted to “touch” the corpse.

“He didn’t deny anything,” Yeon Je-seon, an inspector in Cheognam district police, told the Korea JoongAng Daily yesterday. “‘I just wanted to touch her, that’s all,’ he said.”

“The inspectors were shocked because the student didn’t express any emotion or sense of guilt during questioning,” Yeon said.

Police gave no details about the woman’s suicide, but said the woman had suffered from depression.

Yeon said the student claimed to be bullied by classmates for the last two years. Police will have psychiatrists examine the student.

According to police, the students’ parents have been separated for years and he currently lives with his father, a day worker in construction in Cheongju.

By Kwon Sang-soo [sakwon80@joongang.co.kr]