South Korean true crime fanatic murdered stranger ‘out of curiosity’

Jung Yoo Jung was arrested when the taxi driver reported her 'blood-soaked' rucksack. Photo / Busan Police

A woman obsessed with crime shows and novels has been jailed for life in South Korea for murdering a stranger “out of curiosity”.

Jung Yoo Jung, 23, was fixated on the idea of “trying out a murder”, a court heard.

She chose her victim by using a phone app to find an English language teacher, the BBC reported.

Police said Jung, an unemployed “loner” who lived with her grandfather, had been searching for someone to kill for several months.

Posing as the mother of a high school student who needed English lessons, she contacted the 26-year-old teacher who lived in the south-eastern city of Busan.

Wearing a school uniform she had bought online, Jung went to the tutor’s house.

Once inside she carried out a frenzied attack, stabbing her victim more than 100 times before dismembering the woman’s body.

Taking a taxi, she dumped some of the body parts, which had been packed into a suitcase, in remote parkland.

The driver then contacted the police and told them about a passenger with blood-soaked luggage.

Prosecutors wanted death penalty

Prosecutors had sought the death penalty for the gruesome murder, which sent shockwaves around South Korea.

Police said Jung had spent months researching online how to kill somebody and dispose of the body.

In an attempt to commit the perfect crime, she kept the victim’s mobile phone, ID card and wallet, hoping to fool the authorities that the woman had disappeared.

But Jung failed to take into account the presence of CCTV cameras that caught her entering and leaving the victim’s home.

Jung, who confessed to the crime in June, said she suffered from hallucinations.

However, the court ruled the crime had been “carefully planned and carried out, and it is difficult to accept her claim of mental and physical disorder”.

On Friday, the judge in Busan District Court said the killing had “spread fear in society that one can become a victim for no reason” and “incited a general distrust” among the community.

Although the death penalty remains legal in South Korea, the last execution took place in 1997.