Suspicious Clues Found on Jang Yoonki's Phone... Did He Target the High School Girl Victim with Prior Knowledge?

Police Briefing: “Evidence Found That Suspect Knew and Targeted Victim Before the Crime”
“Concerns Over Secondary Harm to the Family…Details of the Data Cannot Be Disclosed”

It has been revealed that Jang Yoonki (23), the suspect in the Gwangju high school girl murder case, knew the victim, the late Lee Chaewon (16), well before the crime and committed the act with this prior knowledge.

Yonhap News

The "Jang Yoonki Murder Case Special Investigation Team" under the National Investigation Headquarters of the Korean National Police Agency (hereafter referred to as the Special Investigation Team) held an interim press briefing on the morning of July 15 at the Gwangju Police Agency's press room to announce these findings.

According to the Special Investigation Team, a crucial clue suggesting that Jang Yoonki had known the victim, Lee, unilaterally well before the crime was recovered during digital forensics on a spare, unregistered mobile phone that Jang possessed at the time of his arrest.

A representative from the Special Investigation Team explained, "The victim did not know Jang Yoonki at all. However, evidence confirms that Jang recognized the victim before the crime and deliberately targeted her. Given that the investigation is ongoing and to prevent secondary harm to the bereaved family, we cannot disclose specific data details at this time." The representative added that this evidence originated not immediately before the crime but "well before the incident," leading the team to conduct a detailed investigation into Jang's process of selecting his target.

This development completely overturns Jang Yoonki's previous claims made consistently since just after the crime. During a pre-trial detention hearing on May 7, Jang insisted, "I did not commit the crime because I thought she was a schoolgirl." On May 14, while being transferred to the prosecution, he again emphasized to reporters that it was a spontaneous act and strongly denied any element of premeditation. However, during the second trial held on the 13th, Jang admitted, under prosecution questioning, to the charges of murder, including rape and other related crimes, admitting that he stalked and attempted to abduct Lee with the intention of committing a sexual offense before killing her.

The inadequate initial response of the Gwangsan Police Station's investigative team is also causing controversy. According to the Special Investigation Team's findings, the investigative team had already identified suspicious evidence suggesting Jang had recognized the victim in advance, as early as around May 8, three days after the crime, from Jang's mobile phone.

Despite detecting indications that could uncover both premeditated and sexually motivated crime, the investigative team neither executed additional warrants nor conducted supplementary investigation. Instead, they documented only Jang’s claim of "simple murder" in the report and hastily passed the case to the prosecution.

The Special Investigation Team is now focusing its investigative efforts on discovering why the investigative team suppressed or dismissed such key evidence, and whether improper intervention took place from Jang Yoonki's father—a then-serving police executive—or from higher-level supervisory police officials during the investigation process.

A representative from the Special Investigation Team added, "While the other party did not know the suspect, we are reviewing facts regarding the possibility that the suspect unilaterally identified and planned the crime against his target. As soon as the actual circumstances regarding these findings are fully clarified, we will disclose the details at an appropriate time."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.