Man confesses to murder, leads police to woman's remains in North Chungcheong

Police found the body of a woman 44 days after she went missing in Cheongju, North Chungcheong, after her former boyfriend confessed to killing her and led officers to a waste-processing site in the same province on Thursday.

The Chungbuk Provincial Police Agency said officers located the remains of the woman, whose body was inside a sack, at around 8 p.m.

Investigators said the suspect, a man surnamed Kim, told them he killed the woman and left her body at a waste disposal site in Eumseong County.

He reportedly confessed Thursday after police questioned him about hiding her SUV at his client company's property in Jincheon County and then driving it to Chungju Lake in the city of Chungju.

Police said they will seek a detention warrant and upgrade the charge from involuntary manslaughter to murder.

A police official said the body “is being moved, still in the sack, to a mortuary for examination” and declined to give further details.

The dead woman disappeared on Oct. 14 after surveillance cameras captured her leaving work in Oksan-myeon, Cheongju, and driving away in her SUV. 

Police reviewed disputes between the two after their breakup and focused the investigation on Kim.

Police detained Kim on Wednesday. He initially denied killing the woman, saying, “I met her on the day she went missing and argued with her in her SUV. I did hit her, but I did not kill her.”

Authorities retrieved the SUV from Chungju Lake Wednesday afternoon.

Police said they will question Kim about his motive and the circumstances of the killing.

This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.

BY HYEON YE-SEUL [kim.juyeon2@joongang.co.kr]