Man Indicted for Detaining and Killing Woman in Cafe Freezer

The Goyang Branch of the Uijeongbu District Prosecutors' Office indicted in custody on the 1st a man in his 30s, identified only by his surname Shin, on charges of luring, confinement, and murder for luring a woman in her 60s into the freezer of a cafe in Paju, Gyeonggi Province, and confining her there until she died. Prosecutors applied charges of murder by luring, forgery of securities, and use of forged securities against Shin.

Shin is suspected of having around 100,000 copies of 500,000-won department store gift certificates printed at a print shop in Yeongdeungpo-gu, Seoul, around August 31, and posing as if he would sell them to a buyer at a high price. According to the investigation, Shin asked the gift certificate buyer to send an elderly person as a verifier of the certificates.

Shin is also charged with confining the victim in a freezer at minus 25 degrees Celsius for approximately 27 hours, from around 11:10 a.m. on the 3rd of last month until around 2:40 p.m. the following day.

During the investigation, Shin reportedly changed his statements, claiming he had no intent to kill and that he did not act alone. However, prosecutors view this as an attempt to disrupt the investigation, saying there is no objective evidence to support his claims. In particular, records of phone calls between Shin and a third party obtained by prosecutors contained a plan to murder the gift certificate verifier.

Prosecutors said they will do their utmost in maintaining the prosecution so that the defendant can be sentenced to a punishment commensurate with his crime, and will also work to ensure substantive recovery of damages for the bereaved family, including psychological treatment and payment of relief funds.