Police Under Fire for Slow Response to Murder Victim's Call

Police are under fire for their slow response to a desperate call for help from a woman in her 20s in Suwon who was raped and eventually brutally murdered. The incident reveals serious weaknesses in the police response to emergency calls.

The victim, who was abducted, gave police a detailed description of where she was being held, but officers still searched in the wrong area.

On the evening of April 1, the victim was abducted by Wu Yuanchun (42), an ethnic Korean from China, and dragged into his home. But she managed to call police on her mobile phone. According to police, the woman was dragged into Wu's home at around 10:50 p.m. When he told her to take her clothes off, the woman laid her coat on his bed to make him believe she was following his orders. When Wu stepped in the bathroom, the woman locked the room door and made the call to police for help.

But she was unable to escape because the entrance to the room she was holed up in was connected to the bathroom. The woman dropped her phone on the floor when Wu broke through the bedroom door but did not switch it off. A police spokesman said, "The emergency call was recorded vividly even after she dropped the phone. It looks like her last attempt to let police know just how desperate she was."

The suspect told police he murdered the woman in his room at around 5 a.m. on April 2. That means police had a full six hours to rescue her.

Officers initially claimed the woman's call last only one minute when it actually lasted for seven minutes and 36 seconds.

After murdering the woman, Wu chopped her body into pieces. A forensic expert who conducted an autopsy on the woman described the condition of her body as "too horrific for words." The National Forensic Service received 14 plastic bags filled with altogether 280 body parts. "He butchered her," the official added.

Police on Sunday told reporters, "Based on Wu's testimony, it looks like he tried to rape her but failed. At times, such a horrific murder is an expression of frustration with being unable to rape someone."