Murder-suicide suspected after two women, two men found dead at Paju hotel

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Murder-suicide suspected after two women, two men found dead at Paju hotel

Published: 11 Apr. 2024, 18:12 Updated: 12 Apr. 2024, 14:02

KIM JI-YE
kim.jiye@joongang.co.kr

An image of the Gyeonggi Bukbu Provincial Police Agency in Uijeongbu, Gyeonggi [GYEONGGI BUKBU PROVINCIAL POLICE AGENCY]

Two women were found dead in a hotel room in Paju, Gyeonggi, where two men also died from jumping off the same building.

The Paju Police Precinct said on Thursday that it speculates that the women were strangled to death based on the autopsy report by the National Forensic Service.

According to the Gyeonggi Bukbu Provincial Police Agency, police and the fire department received a report on Wednesday at 10:35 a.m. that two men threw themselves off a balcony connected to a hotel room located in Paju.

The two men, 23 and 24, were later found dead outside the building.

After discovering the men's bodies, police found two women dead in the room where the men stayed. They are assuming that their deaths were murders after finding the women's wrists bound by cable ties.

According to the police, one of the women was reported missing on Tuesday when a family member was unable to contact her after she said she would meet a friend on Monday.

After the report, police traced the woman's taxi to a hotel in Paju.

At 10 a.m. on Wednesday, the police knocked on a hotel room door and met one of the men, who said that the woman came to the hotel room but left the night before, saying she had "something to do" in downtown Goyang.

While police went to the first floor to check the surveillance footage, the men jumped off the building.

Based on the surveillance footage, police discovered that the two men were friends and stayed at the hotel since Monday. The footage also showed that the women entered the room separately an hour or two apart from each other.

Police are assuming that the men committed suicide after the police visited them at the hotel after they murdered the women.

Though the exact relationship between the men and women are unknown, police have learned that they started communicating with each other through a mobile app.

There was no circumstantial evidence leading to illegal drug usage or sexual offense, according to the police.

After analyzing the men's phones, police said that the men did not have any relationship, platonic or romantic, with the women and were not part of any online suicidal community.

Police are investigating whether the crime was planned and searching for the women's phones, which have not yet been discovered.

If you or someone you know is feeling emotionally distressed or struggling with thoughts of suicide, LifeLine Korea can be contacted at 1588-9191 or the Crisis Counseling Center at 1577-0199. The Seoul Global Center offers English-language counseling, contact 02-2075-4180 (+1) to arrange a session. Other international helplines can be found at www.befrienders.org.

BY SON SUNG-BAE, KIM JI-YE [kim.jiye@joongang.co.kr]