‘Cream bread dad’ killing is close to being solved

A suspect in the hit-and-run killing of “cream bread dad” - who was fatally struck in Cheongju, North Chungcheong, on his way home from buying a sweet treat for his pregnant wife - turned himself into police Thursday night, 19 days after the accident.

The suspect, surnamed Hur, allegedly hit the victim at 1:29 a.m. on Jan. 10 driving home after drinking with colleagues. After questioning the suspect, police said he had consumed more than four bottles of soju.

In the days following the killing, when police admitted they didn’t have a suspect, the media dubbed the victim the “cream bbang [bread] dad.” The victim, surnamed Kang, married his wife last October and she is now seven months pregnant.

Kang was killed after picking up cream bbang, bread stuffed with buttercream, on his way from work as a long-distance truck driver.

Apparently, his wife craved cake but he couldn’t afford it.

In questioning, the suspect claimed he didn’t know he had hit a person that morning and only figured it out from reading media accounts.

“I thought it was a sculpture or something,” police quoted him as saying.

In the days after the killing, the police struggled to identify a suspect because surveillance video from the area was blurry.

But when a resident said there was CCTV near his workplace 170 meters (557 feet) from the accident scene, the police were able to identify the car as a GM Daewoo Winstorm.

“It seems that Hur decided to confess to the police after the model of the car was revealed,” the police said.

Hur’s wife finally persuaded him to turn himself in.

Hur’s wife called the police around 7 p.m. Thursday and said: “I am trying to persuade my husband to confess, please come and help me.” Hur and his wife walked into the Cheongju Heungdeok police station at 11:08 p.m. that night.

Meanwhile, when the father of the victim learned a suspect was caught, he went to the police station to comfort him. “I don’t want to blame Hur,” the father said. “He is also somebody’s husband and father, as my son was.”

Kang’s wife was studying to become a teacher. Kang, who graduated from an education college in Gangwon at the top of his class, was forced to support his family as a truck driver.

BY PARK YUNA [ypc3c@joongang.co.kr]