SEOUL, South Korea — A 56-year-old man has confessed to raping and murdering 14 females significantly more than 2 full decades ago, the South Korean authorities stated on Wednesday, they believe is the culprit in the country’s most infamous serial killings as they closed in on the man who.

Lee Chun-jae emerged as a prime suspect in the killings following the police unveiled last thirty days that their DNA matched examples obtained from at the very least four of nine killings that occurred in Hwaseong, south of Seoul, between 1986 and 1991.

Mr. Lee has since confessed to detectives he not just committed all nine murders but also raped and killed five other women in Hwaseong and nearby urban centers, Ban Gi-soo, a police that is senior, stated during a news meeting on Wednesday. Individually, Mr. Lee additionally confessed to 30 rapes or tried rapes, Mr. Ban said.

For many years, the Hwaseong serial murders have actually spawned such fear among Southern Koreans which they became the best-known cool situations in the united states. The victims, ranging in age from 14 to 71, had been strangled to death after their mouths were filled with their stockings, bras or socks. A number of the systems had been mutilated with umbrellas, forks or razor blades.

A complete of two million police had been mobilized to search for the killer throughout the full years, and more than 21,000 men had been interrogated in the event. The killings also inspired the 2003 blockbuster film “Memories of Murder.”

Even though the 15-year statute of restrictions regarding the final for the Hwaseong killings expired in 2006, law enforcement declined to shut their files, continuing to get recommendations and evaluate evidence gathered from murder scenes. Present advances in DNA analysis permitted them to extract DNA samples from proof, that was extremely hard in the right period of the killings.

That proof finally led the officers to Mr. Lee, who was simply serving a life phrase in jail in Busan, a port city on the southeastern tip of Southern Korea, for raping and killing their 20-year-old sister-in-law in 1994. The 1994 killing isn’t among the 14 that law enforcement stated Mr. Lee had admitted to.

Mr. Lee continued a rape and killing spree after he came back house to Hwaseong in 1986 after their mandatory service that is military Mr. Ban stated.

Mr. Ban stated that the investigation regarding the criminal activity spree is continuing, with officers wanting to validate Mr. Lee’s confessions. But detectives have grown to be increasingly confident concerning the authenticity of Mr. Lee’s confessions because he cooperated voluntarily, providing hand-drawn maps of a few of the criminal activity web sites.

But Mr. Lee can not be prosecuted for the killings as the statute of limits on the full instances has recently expired.

Within the Busan jail, Mr. Lee happens to be a model inmate whom became qualified to submit an application for parole. Along with his opportunities of parole having evaporated following the DNA proof linked him to at the very least four killings, Mr. Lee, still safe from fresh indictment, could have chose to confess to another crimes, police said.

“He had an alteration of heart starting week that is last unlawful profiling professionals developed a rapport with him after nine visits to their prison,” Mr. Ban stated. “But our company is still attempting to resolve gaps inside the old memories about precise times, places and functions.”

Mr. Lee, a construction business worker, had been quickly interrogated as being a suspect that is possible the rape and murder of the 29-year-old girl in Hwaseong in 1987, the authorities stated. But he had been released for not enough evidence.

Mr. Lee married in 1991 and had a son immediately after, the authorities stated. Their household relocated to Cheongju, their wife’s hometown, in 1993 but their spouse soon left him. Because of enough time he murdered their sister-in-law in 1994, law enforcement had started making use of DNA analysis for unsolved crimes.

Law enforcement discovered bloodstains inside the restroom and determined, through DNA analysis, which they originated from the sister-in-law.