Man who murdered family isn’t telling all yet

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Man who murdered family isn’t telling all yet

48-year-old man arrested for killing his wife and two daughters has confessed to killing his wife after drugging her with a sleeping pill, the police said Monday.

But the man, only identified by the surname Kang, has been slow to describe why he took such a desperate measure or exactly how his daughters died.

Kang has been under investigation for allegedly strangling his wife and daughters in the family’s home in Seocho-dong, Gangnam District, between 3 a.m. and 4:30 a.m. on Jan. 6. He called the police that morning to confess his crime and then fled the scene in his car, allegedly to kill himself. He was arrested later in the day following a highway chase in North Gyeongsang.

Police said Monday they obtained a confession that he had drugged his 44-year-old wife before killing her. The daughters were 14 and 8.

“I got a prescription for 10 sleeping pills early this month,” Kang was quoted as telling the police. “Between 11 p.m. and midnight on Monday, I cut one of them in half and dissolved it in wine. I, then, made my wife drink it.”

According to the police investigation, Kang purchased 10 sleeping pills on Dec. 8, 2014, and 10 more on Jan. 1, 2015. After arriving at Kang’s home on Jan. 6, the police discovered sleeping pills and began to wonder if he had planned the killings in advance. Autopsy results from the National Forensic Service confirmed that traces of Zolpidem were found in the systems of the wife and eldest daughter. Kang, however, refused to tell the police whether he drugged the daughter.

In questioning, Kang admitted that he had thought about the crime for a while. “When I was driving my family in our car, I once thought about crashing the car intentionally,” he was quoted as telling the police. “I thought about various ways of killing.”

“At first, Kang refused to say whether he had planned the crime in advance, but he recently changed his remarks,” a police official said.

Little progress was made in determining a motive, other than worries about the family’s money situation. Kang had been unemployed for three years but he owned the apartment in the affluent area of southern Seoul.

The value of Kang’s apartment, however, dropped to about 1 billion won ($913,000) recently. He had taken out a 500 million won loan on the property but lost a significant sum in unprofitable stock investments.

And yet, the police said Kang’s wife had about 300 million won in her bank accounts.

The police said it will conduct a reenactment of the crime with the suspect on Tuesday morning.

BY SER MYO-JA [myoja@joongang.co.kr]
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