South Korean man confesses to 16-year-old murder after burying girlfriend in cement

Police in South Korea have arrested a man who reportedly confessed to murdering his girlfriend 16 years ago after her body was found in a suitcase encased in cement on his apartment balcony.

The man, now in his 50s, admitted to hitting her with a blunt object during a heated argument in 2008 while they lived together in an apartment in the southern city of Geoje, police reported.

Following her death from head trauma, he buried her body in the suitcase beneath bricks and cement on the balcony, where it remained hidden for years, according to authorities.

Fingerprint analysis confirmed that the remains inside the suitcase belonged to the missing woman. An autopsy revealed she had died from blunt force trauma to the head.

“The body hadn’t completely decomposed to bones, allowing us to identify her using fingerprints,” local police told AFP.

The body was discovered last month by a maintenance worker who was drilling to fix a rooftop balcony leak in the apartment, which the landlord had been using for storage.

At the time of her disappearance, the man told the landlord they had broken up, and with no physical evidence or leads, the investigation stalled.

The unidentified man continued living in the apartment for eight more years before being imprisoned on drug charges in 2017. The landlord left the unit vacant until a court-ordered eviction was finalized in 2020.

The man also confessed to discarding her phone and the murder weapon in the sea off Geoje's coast, according to The Korea Times.

A police officer told Hankook Ilbo: “The landlord, who lived elsewhere, used the room as a storage space. The concrete structure was located on a balcony separate from the rooftop room, making it difficult to notice from inside the room.”

The woman had lost contact with her family, and in 2011, three years after her murder, they reported her missing when they visited Geoje.

After the body was found, police quickly identified the boyfriend as the prime suspect and arrested him on 19 September in Yangsan, where he had been living. The man is now in police custody facing murder charges.