Woman escapes 2nd murder rap in deaths of lover, husband

The 50-year-old woman at the center of a grisly murder investigation has avoided a second murder charge, police said yesterday.

Police earlier said the woman, identified only as Lee, confessed to killing her 49-year-old lover in May and keeping his body in her apartment. During their initial investigation, police also found the decomposed body of her husband in the apartment and had been trying to establish the facts about his death. Lee had denied killing him.

“Lee said she kept her husband’s corpse because she loved him,” said Kim Chung-hwan, chief of the Pocheon Police Precinct, at a briefing yesterday. “She also said that she found him dead 10 years ago when she tried to wake him in the morning.” Kim added, “She stated that she did not know she had to report his death.”

The length of time since the husband’s death, police said, made it impossible to contest Lee’s assertion that her husband died from natural causes. The police yesterday also concluded that the suspect killed her 49-year-boyfriend, who was identified only as Lee, last year but could not prove whether she killed her husband because there was no evidence to refute her claim that her husband died of natural cases.

The police yesterday forwarded the case to the Uijeongbu District Prosecutors’ Office. She is accused on one count of murder, two of keeping corpses and on one charge of child neglect for living with her 8-year-old child in the apartment with the corpses for two months.