A "ghost taxi" aimed only at women carrying bodies, took money and valuables and even lives.

■ Broadcasting: FM 94.5 (06:40~06:55, 12:40~12:55, 19:40~19:55)
■ Broadcast Date: October 23, 2024 (Wednesday)
■ Host: Lawyer Lee Won-hwa
■ Dialogue: Lawyer Lee Hyun-tae

* The text below may differ from the actual broadcast content, so please check the broadcast for more accurate information.
◆ Lawyer Lee Won-hwa (hereinafter dualized): There would have been no doubt to anyone. From the license plate to the taxi on top of the car, it was just a normal taxi itself. This vehicle, which a woman got on thinking it was a taxi, was a ghost taxi. So it was a criminal vehicle that was driving as if it were a taxi with stolen taxis and license plates. There were two men in the vehicle who cruelly strangled them to death after taking away the cash and cards the woman had. And they even showed the meticulousness of changing the license plate of the vehicle so as not to be caught by the police. The two men, who were planning another crime, were overpowered by security company employees. And I wondered if they would end their criminal acts using ghost taxis like this. But after that, something really absurd happened again. What happened? Let's talk about this in detail in today's case X file. Hello, I'm Lee Won-hwa, the case X file of lawyer Lee Won-hwa. Today, we are joined by lawyer Lee Hyun-tae of Law Firm, Law Firm Roel. Welcome, lawyer.

◇ Attorney Lee Hyun-tae (hereinafter referred to as Lee Hyun-tae): Hello, I'm Lee Hyun-tae, a lawyer at LOEL Law Firm.

◆ Lee Won-hwa: This case, which we will deal with today, is a murder that took place when two men drove a ghost taxi pretending to be a taxi. I think we should talk about the two men first, but Kim and Heo appear, right?

◇ Lee Hyun-tae: That's right. This incident happened in 2002 when the Korea-Japan World Cup was exciting. The crime was committed by Kim, the main culprit, and Heo, an accomplice. Kim was 28 years old at the time and Heo was 24. Kim and Heo got to know each other while working together at a golf course clubhouse in Yongin, Gyeonggi-do. Looking at their growth background, Kim was born into an educator family and grew up in a wealthy environment. Nevertheless, he had been in and out of prison for theft, robbery, and sexual crimes since his 20s, including special robbery during his military service, and by the time he met Heo, he had as many as seven previous convictions. Meanwhile, Heo was raised by stepmothers after her parents divorced when she was 8 years old. He spent his childhood in a very economically deprived environment, but he had no previous criminal record before this incident.

◆ Won-hwa Lee: But if you were not just a colleague, but planned the crime together, you were really close or you might have had a good interest, what was the case like in this case?

◇Lee Hyun-tae: Actually, they worked together at the golf course for less than a month. Heo got a job around mid-March 2002, and he met Kim, who joined the company about five months earlier. Meanwhile, Heo was a little introverted, so he couldn't get along well with other employees, but when Kim treated Heo lightly, the two quickly became close. They got a room close to each other and lived alone, and they developed until they shared their personal circumstances with each other. At that time, Heo was always struggling with card debt of 8 million won. Kim asked, "Can you do anything that makes money when you know Heo's situation?" and suggested a crime, saying, "Let's have a big drink." At this time, Heo was receiving a monthly salary of about 1 million won at the time, but he decided that he could not pay his debt with this, so he eventually accepted Kim's offer.

◆ Won-hwa Lee: I think it can be seen that Heo fell for Kim's game in the beginning, but I heard that it was Kim's acquaintance that the two of them targeted for the first crime?

◇ Lee Hyun-tae: That's right. Their first target of crime was Lee, who worked at the hair salon Kim used to go to. Late at night on April 18, 2002, Kim calls out Lee to go for a drive. And he put him in his car and took him to the parking lot of Yongin Rest Area on the Yeongdong Expressway. Here, when Kim pulled up and opened the trunk, Heo, who was hiding, came out, and the two men threatened Lee, took two credit cards and 100,000 won in cash, and strangled him to death with a string. And the body was buried in a nearby hill.

◆ Lee Won-hwa: If you say that we went on a drive together, it means that we actually had some friendship. But it seems hard to understand in common sense that you committed this crime when you had no desire, wasn't the purpose money? It's a little frustrating why he even committed murder.

◇Lee Hyun-tae: According to Heo's statement, this was Kim's idea, but he killed her by saying, "It's obvious that I'll report it if I keep it alive." He even committed murder with the simple idea that he should not make a so-called hindsight. Those who gained confidence from the first crime decided to plan a more effective and detailed crime method. Kim even submitted a letter of resignation to the golf course to prepare for the crime in earnest. And the way they came up with it was to use ghost taxis to take money from women.

◆ Won-hwa Lee: Did you think that you should target passengers who took a taxi while running a taxi? In order to do that, you have to steal the taxi itself, but I don't think it would have been easy.

◇Lee Hyun-tae: The vehicle used in the crime was the sonata owned by Kim. It was a vehicle that was commonly used as a taxi. And on top of that, I put a license plate and a taxi stolen from another taxi to make it look like a taxi. In this way, it was no different from a regular taxi on the outside. Heo and Kim's second crime occurred on April 27, 2002, nine days after the first crime. They traveled around Suwon and Yongin in this ghost taxi, and then around 11 p.m., they picked up Park, a piano instructor who was waiting for a taxi in front of the main gate of Samsung Electronics in Suwon. However, when Park moved to a different destination than the destination he said, Park resisted, and then they threatened Park with a fist. Then, he dragged him to the Osancheon parking lot, assaulted him, and took away 20,000 won in cash and a credit card. Their crime didn't stop there. After Kim sent Heo out of the vehicle, he asked her to watch and even forcibly molested Park in the car.

◆ Won-hwa Lee: Did it lead to another murder?

◇ Lee Hyun-tae: Kim strangles the victim Park with a string and kills her soon. After committing the second crime like this, Heo calmly went to work at the golf course the next day, worked normally until 3 p.m., and now Heo also submits his resignation. And that night, they also decided to commit the third crime. So, on April 28, 2002, around 9 p.m., I picked Mr. Lee up on the road in front of the Hyundai Motor Service Center in Yeongdeok-ri, Giheung-eup, Yongin-si. It was less than 2km away from the second crime scene. Instead of going to college, Lee was a freshman in society who got a job and took care of his younger brother and parents. After working overtime, I was trying to take a taxi home, but unfortunately, I got to take these criminals' taxi. Unlike the destination, victim Lee protested when the taxi ran down the Gyeongbu Expressway, but it was already irreversible. The criminals dragged Lee to the shoulder near the Osan Interchange, took cash and cards, and killed him in the same way.

◆ Won-hwa Lee: I don't think I can tell you the fear this woman must have felt when she found out that she was going in the opposite direction, not the direction she asked to go, but what about the body, including the second crime and this one?

◇Lee Hyun-tae: Except for Lee, the hairdresser who first killed her, she carried the bodies of other victims in the trunk of her car.

◆ Lee Won-hwa: You just put it in like you were loading things?

◇Lee Hyun-tae: I don't think I could have afforded to dispose of the body properly because I committed several crimes in such a short period of time. When the three crimes are so easy, Heo and Kim become bolder. Previously, I only took money, but this time, I decided to pretend to be a Yatta and have fun and drink. So this time, I took off my taxi and walked around the popular street, and stopped my car on the busy street of Matan-dong, Suwon-si around 5 a.m. And while searching for the target of the crime, he approached three women, Ahn, Jung, and Kang, who were employees of the clothing store coming out of the night club, asking them to have a drink. The women got into the car without any doubt, and neither Heo nor Kim showed their true colors at first. After wandering around Yeoju and Icheon for 17 hours, he stopped his car on the shoulder near the Yongin Rest Area on the Yeongdong Expressway, and it quickly turned into a robber. He threatened women and took away 120,000 won in cash, sexually assaulted Ahn in front of his party and strangled her to death with a string.

◆ Won-hwa Lee: It's so shocking, but what's a little different from the previous situations this time was that there were three people who committed the crime. But it wasn't enough to stop the crime, was it?

◇ Lee Hyun-tae: The remaining two fiercely resisted, but Kim tied the remaining two women with strings, tricked them into saying they would release them, stopped the resistance, and killed them one after another in the same way. Even if there were three women, and the number was higher, it would not have been easy to beat two healthy men by force. Also, watching the group being sexually assaulted and dying painfully must have felt extreme fear. On the other hand, what is surprising about this case is that it took only 47 hours for Heo and Kim to kill five women in their 20s. It didn't even take two days. However, they killed five women and held only about 2.5 million won.

◆ Won-hwa Lee: You said that the purpose of the crime was money, but I think it was more focused on murder than money. But how did these people get caught?

◇Lee Hyun-tae: Heo and Kim were thinking of continuing their crimes without stopping here. There were already five bodies in the car, but they planned to commit additional crimes. However, what I planned to do to commit the crime in a detailed manner rather hampered them. I thought I should change my license plate because I could catch my tail with the police. It was a rainy night on April 30, 2002. On this day, Heo and Kim infiltrate the Samsung Semiconductor parking lot in Yongin City. Then, he approaches a car parked in the parking lot, looks at Heo's network, and Kim attempts to remove the license plate. The image was captured on CCTV by a private security company, and after a while, seven employees were dispatched to the scene and fought for 20 minutes, they overpowered Heo and Kim. And not long after, an employee of this private security company reported it, and the police who received the report were dispatched to the scene, and something somewhat absurd happens here. The police put Heo and Kim in a patrol car without handcuffs and went to check the car they drove, but in the meantime, the criminals drove away the patrol car with the key. The panicked police chased the security company's employees about 100 meters in the security company's vehicle, and after blocking the patrol car and fighting once again, Heo was arrested, but Kim fled as it was.

◆ Won-hwa Lee: This is absurd. In fact, I don't think I would have thought that these two men would be serial killers at that time. I think I handled it loosely because I thought it was a simple thief, so what happened?

◇ Lee Hyun-tae: Most likely, he thought he was a simple thief stealing license plates at first. In fact, it is a principle that more than two police officers should be dispatched, but at this time, only one person was dispatched to the scene of the incident, saying there was a lack of manpower. In addition, the police who were dispatched at this time took only Heo to the police station, and did not even report missing Kim. Then, about an hour later, when Kim's car was parked in the parking lot, five bodies of the victims were found. All of them were strangled to death with their hands and feet tied tightly. And inside the car, a shovel, a hoe, a string, and several credit cards, checks, and cash were found together. And only then did the investigation expand in earnest as Kim's escape report and official report were made.

◆ Won-hwa Lee: Did you catch Kim who said he ran away?

◇ Lee Hyun-tae: It's a little late, but the police have started a massive inspection and search at nearby checkpoints and highway toll gates. At this time, Kim asked his younger brother in Pohang for help, and Kim's younger brother and mother left for Yongin by car and picked Kim up and headed back to Pohang. On the way, I withdrew 6 million won with my younger brother's card to secure funds for escape, and even called my cohabitation in Yongin. And they got a room in a residential area in Sangdae-dong, Pohang, and set up a hideout for long-term escape. The police dispatched a detective to Pohang, the origin of the call, after checking the details of the phone call with the cohabitation, and the police, who found out Kim's whereabouts through his younger brother, raided the hideout, but they hurt themselves with a weapon carried by Kim, who ran away to the attic in a hurry. The police rushed to the hospital, but Kim eventually died of excessive bleeding.

◆ Won-hwa Lee: I often say that once is difficult, twice is easy, but I think the meeting between the two men itself was a wrong meeting.

◇Lee Hyun-tae: I also think Heo might have lived a normal life if he hadn't met Kim. Heo was arrested and charged with robbery and murder, and has been imprisoned until now as the death penalty was confirmed at trial.

◆Won-Won-Won-Won-Won: That's all we've prepared for today. You all deserve to be defended. Incident X file, thank you everyone.