Chat logs showing Jang Yun-gi discussed kidnapping teenage girls admitted as trial evidence

A court has admitted as evidence chat logs showing that Jang Yun-gi (23), who killed a high school girl in Gwangju, had discussed plans to kidnap a teenage girl while still in high school.

According to legal sources, the 13th Criminal Division of the Gwangju District Court (presiding judge Lee Jeong-ho) will hold the third hearing in the trial of Jang on Monday at 10 a.m. He has been indicted and detained on charges including rape-murder under the Act on Special Cases Concerning the Punishment of Sexual Violence Crimes.

The victim's parents — Lee Chae-won (16) was killed by Jang — and a male student (17) who suffered serious injuries after rushing to her aid upon hearing her screams, only to be attacked by Jang with a knife, will testify at the hearing.

Chat logs in which Jang stated during his high school years that he intended to kidnap a teenage girl were accepted as circumstantial evidence during the proceedings. As a result, previously scheduled witness examinations of his high school classmates and former colleagues from his social service duty were withdrawn.

Those witnesses had been set to testify on whether Jang had said he wanted to abduct a teenage girl in a vehicle and commit a sex crime against her. With Jang acknowledging the related circumstantial evidence, separate witness examinations were no longer deemed necessary.

If witness examinations and other procedural steps are concluded at Monday's hearing, direct questioning of defendant Jang is expected to take place at the next session.

Jang is accused of killing Lee, then a second-year high school student, for the purpose of committing a sex crime at around 12:10 a.m. on May 5 on a secluded pedestrian path in Wolge-dong, Gwangsan-gu, Gwangju. He also faces a charge of attempted murder for attacking with a knife the male student who ran to the scene after hearing the victim's screams, seriously injuring him.

The prosecution's indictment also includes charges that Jang sexually assaulted a 26-year-old Vietnamese woman who was a co-worker at a part-time job two days before the killing, and that he illegally filmed the bodies of teenage girls while serving his social service duty.

The case drew further scrutiny after it emerged that Jang's father and uncle are both mid-ranking active-duty police officers, prompting allegations of a lenient investigation. Subsequent supplementary investigations by prosecutors uncovered allegations that the police investigative team had destroyed evidence, and both prosecutors and police are continuing efforts to establish the full facts surrounding the case and the conduct of the investigation.