Double homicide over badly parked Kia Morning

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Double homicide over badly parked Kia Morning


Narrow lanes and cramped parking spaces don’t usually lead to murder.

But a 42-year-old man surnamed Kim was arrested by police for stabbing to death two next-door neighbors on Tuesday in Gyeonggi. The reason: one of the neighbors parked her car in a way that slightly blocked the entrance gate to his house.

Around 4 p.m. Tuesday, Kim had been sitting in his family’s Hyundai Equus parked near his house on Jung-dong, Wonmi District in Bucheon for around 20 minutes. One of his neighbors, a 38-year-old woman surnamed Choi, returned home in her car and parked it. She got out of the car and was met by her 39-year-old sister, who came out of their house. Choi’s car, a Kia Morning, slightly blocked the gate of Kim’s house.

With a knife he had prepared beforehand, Kim left his car, approached the sisters and stabbed the older woman’s neck, back and leg six times.

Her younger sister tried to stop Kim, and she was also stabbed several times. The Choi sisters, both unconscious, were transported to a nearby hospital by ambulances that came after other neighbors called 119. But they died in the hospital.

Kim was still at the scene of crime when the police arrived. He was dressed in a suit and necktie. Police said he made no attempt to escape.

According to Bucheon police, Kim was unemployed, single and lived with his parents. He had regularly quarreled with the Choi sisters over parking. Kim told the police, “Because of the parking issue, I did not have favorable feelings towards the Choi sisters.”

The neighborhood is overcrowded with multi-household residences and villas and parking spaces are at a premium. An elementary school is nearby. Parking spaces are not marked, so residents park on both sides of the street, barely allowing enough space for cars to drive through.

This led to constant friction amongst people living on the street.

According to Kim’s neighbors, he frequently accused the Choi family of parking in his spot. They had witnessed Kim and the Choi sisters arguing vehemently.

The sisters’ relative said several days before the murder, Kim went to the Choi residence and threatened them. “If you park in front of my house one more time,” he said, according to the relative, “I will kill you.”

Kim’s parents told the police their son suffered from a mental illness.

Police said that Kim had a record of being hospitalized in 2010 and 2011.

In a similar case, a 47-year-old man surnamed Yim murdered his neighbors, a 44-year-old man named Park and his wife, over parking issues in November 2008 in another overcrowded, multi-household residential area in Daejo-dong, Eunpyeong District, in northern Seoul.


BY CHOI MO-RAN, SARAH KIM [sarahkim@joongang.co.kr]
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