Man detained for allegedly killing girlfriend, abandoning body, attempting to steal money
Published: 26 Jan. 2026, 18:50
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[JOONGANG ILBO]
A man has been indicted and detained for allegedly killing his romantic partner during an argument, abandoning her body and trying to steal her money after her death.
The Ansan branch of the Suwon District Prosecutors’ Office indicted the suspect on charges of robbery-homicide and abandonment of a body, the office said Monday.
The suspect is accused of killing the victim at around 9:40 p.m. on Dec. 28 last year inside his car, which was parked in a residential area in Danwon District, Ansan, Gyeonggi.
After the killing, the suspect drove the vehicle to an area near an expressway in Pocheon and abandoned the victim’s body.
Following the crime, the suspect told a friend, “I beat my girlfriend, and she's not breathing,” the friend said. The friend then reported the incident to the police.
The suspect was staying at the friend’s home when police arrived to conduct a witness interview. He voluntarily accompanied officers and later confessed at a police station, where he was taken into emergency custody.
During questioning, the suspect claimed the crime was impulsive.
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[JOONGANG ILBO]
“I got into an argument with my girlfriend, whom I had been dating for about a month, and ended up committing the crime,” the suspect said, according to investigators.
However, prosecutors said additional investigations — including analysis of the vehicle’s black box footage, forensic examinations of both individuals’ mobile phones and a review of financial records — found that the suspect committed the crime with the intention of taking the victim’s money.
Prosecutors, therefore, applied the charge of robbery-homicide rather than ordinary murder.
Investigators found that immediately after killing the victim, the suspect attempted to withdraw tens of millions of won from the victim’s bank account using the victim’s mobile phone. When that failed, he tried to obtain a card loan.
Robbery-homicide carries a sentence of life imprisonment or the death penalty, a higher minimum term than ordinary murder, which is punishable by death, life imprisonment or at least five years in prison.
This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
BY JUNG SI-NAE [[email protected]]
with the Korea JoongAng Daily
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