Prosecutors try to buttress case against killer

Yoo Yeong-cheol, the serial killer suspect, has refused to say anything more and went on a hunger strike, prosecutors said yesterday. Responding to criticism that law enforcement here relies almost entirely on extracting confessions, prosecutors vowed to bring some high technology into their investigation. Police said earlier they had little physical evidence.
The Seoul District Prosecutors Office said it has put together a team of experts, including three professors of forensic medicine at Seoul National University. Other members come from the National Institute of Scientific Investigation and the Supreme Public Prosecutors Office.
Lee Jeong-bin, a forensic medicine professor at Seoul National University, gave an analysis matching the wounds found on some victims to weapons police seized in the course of their investigation.
Lee Seung-hwan of the Supreme Public Prosecutors Office’s DNA identification unit has a good reputation in his field, and provided the forensic evidence that linked a killer to a victim in a notorious case in 1992.
Kim Jong-ryul, of the same office, is in charge of analyzing Mr. Yoo’s mental state. “Serial killers like Mr. Yoo commit crimes because they want to validate their own existence,” Mr. Kim said.
He explained that the refusal of Mr. Yoo to speak to investigators and his decision to engage in a hunger strike were a temporary phenomenon that arose because he is slowly awakening from the delusional state in which he committed the murders.

by Ha Jae-shik