Man who killed mother-in-law, kidnapped wife transferred to prosecutors

Kim Sung-woo, 26, a social service worker who killed his mother-in-law and kidnapped his wife, was transferred to prosecutors Tuesday. Police concluded that Kim, who had harbored ill feelings toward his wife's family, carried out the attack in a rage after his wife reported him for domestic violence.

Seoul's Songpa Police Station transferred Kim on charges including violations of the Act on the Aggravated Punishment of Specific Crimes — covering retaliatory murder and unlawful confinement — as well as aggravated assault, aggravated obstruction of a public official resulting in injury, aggravated destruction of public property, and violations of the Stalking Punishment Act and the Domestic Violence Act.

Kim emerged from the Songpa Police Station detention facility at 7:30 a.m. Tuesday wearing a hat and mask. He boarded the transport vehicle without answering any questions from reporters, who asked why he had killed his mother-in-law, whether the killing was intended as retaliation, whether he had planned to kill other family members, and what he had commissioned from a private investigation agency.

Immediately after his arrest, Kim claimed the killing was impulsive and that the confinement was merely an attempt to talk. Police concluded, however, that he had planned the attack deliberately — with the aim of retaliating against his wife for filing the domestic violence report and pressuring her to drop the complaint.

Investigators based their conclusion on four factors: Kim had loitered near his wife's family home — the couple's marriage annulment suit was ongoing — to monitor the family's movements; he had purchased a kitchen knife near his wife's residence about three weeks before the attack; he had postponed a police interview scheduled for Oct. 10 regarding assault charges against his wife and committed the crime the very next day; and after kidnapping his wife, he openly expressed hostility toward her family. On that basis, police upgraded the charges from killing a lineal ascendant and aggravated unlawful confinement to retaliatory murder and retaliatory confinement.

Kim had loitered near his wife's family home a total of 18 times between Sept. 16 and Oct. 11. He was also found to have stalked his wife nine times during a court-ordered no-contact period that ran from Aug. 22 to Sept. 30.