An innocent man was jailed for murder. It took 30 years to find the real serial killer - CNA

HWASEONG, SOUTH KOREA: There is a story behind why Yoon Sung-Yeo hangs two clocks in his home. A tale spanning 30 years, in fact, about the staggering miscarriage of justice against one man.

Time stopped when he was arrested and thrown into prison in 1989 for a murder he did not commit. He was then 22.

“If you are found with a clock in prison, you would be punished,” he said. “For 20 years, I didn’t see a clock. That’s why now, I have two clocks.”

Hwaseong, a rural area just south of Seoul, had been rocked by a string of murders from 1986. The victims, all women, ranged from their teens to 70s. All were sexually assaulted and strangled with their own clothing – garments such as stockings and underwear – in what came to be known as the killer’s signature.

Then in September 1988, teenager Park Sang-hee was murdered. Unlike the previous cases where the victims were killed outdoors, the 14-year-old student was found in her bed, sexually assaulted and strangled with her own clothes.

The killer had become more brazen, entering a victim’s home for the first time. The case, which sent shockwaves through the country, was the eighth in two years.

Under pressure to make headway in investigations, the police had nothing conclusive to link Yoon to the crime.

Yet, after a three-day interrogation where he was deprived of sleep and assaulted, Yoon confessed. When he was sentenced to life imprisonment, no one believed he was innocent, he recalled. A shadow continued to hang over him even after he was released on parole in 2009.  

It was only a full decade later, in 2019, that an incredible breakthrough led to him walking out of court a truly free man, innocent in the eyes of the world.

CNA’s two-part special, Catching a Killer: The Hwaseong Murders, traces the mistakes that robbed him of his freedom. (Watch the episodes here and here.)

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2021-10-02 22:02:02Z
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