Suspect in grisly Busan murder sent to prosecutors for further probe

A Busan woman who was arrested last week for allegedly killing another woman “out of curiosity about murder” was transferred to the prosecution for further investigation and indictment, police said Friday.

Jung Yoo-jung, 23, was apprehended last Saturday on suspicion of killing the victim, known as a freelance tutor, with a weapon at the latter’s home in Busan’s Geumjeong district the previous day and abandoning her body.

Jung is accused of dismembering the victim’s body and dumping some of the body parts in a riverside bush in Yangsan, just north of the southern port city. Her arrest came after police were tipped off by a taxi driver who took the suspect to Yangsan and found it strange that she dumped a bloodstained suitcase in the woods.

The suspect triggered social resentment after she reportedly confessed that she killed the victim with no personal connection just out of her curiosity about murder.

The Busan Metropolitan Police Agency disclosed her name, age and facial photo on Thursday in consideration of the seriousness and brutality of her crime. The agency has also been administering a psychopath test to Jung, noting she has had no special job and personal relationships after high school graduation and has intensively searched homicide cases online and in TV programs and novels since early this year.

Leaving a police detention center en route to the prosecution early Friday morning, Jung was asked by reporters the reason for the murder and said she feels “really sorry for the victim’s family.”

Asked why she tried to disguise her crime as a disappearance case, Jung replied, “I think I was out of my mind.”

According to the police, Jung recently met the victim through an app specialized in matching private tutors with students and parents and visited the victim’s home pretending to be a high school student.