Man kills wife’s ex-husband, stepdaughter

January 13, 2015
(Yonhap)

South Korean special riot forces make preparations during a five-hour standoff. (Yonhap)

ANSAN, South Korea (Yonhap) — A 47-year-old man, apparently suspicious that his wife was trying to reunite with her divorced husband, killed him and one of his own step-daughters before being arrested, police said.

The South Korean man, identified only by his surname Kim, stormed into the ex-husband’s house in Ansan, south of Seoul, on Monday and stabbed him to death, police said. The man apparently suspected that his wife, whom he had re-married in 2007, was trying to reunite with her ex-husband, they said.

After stabbing the ex-husband to death, the man then tied up his two step-daughters with a cloth and a friend of his wife’s who happened to visit the house and called his wife for him, telling her to report to police that he was holding three people hostage.

Special riot forces, dispatched Tuesday afternoon, took the man down by force after a five-hour standoff, police said.

Inside, police found a 16-year-old daughter with stab wounds to her neck, while two others were unharmed. The wounded teenager was rushed to a nearby hospital where she was pronounced dead, they said.

An initial investigation showed that the man was enraged, apparently believing that his wife, who has been living separated from him since August, may have resumed relationship with her ex-husband.

“Kim is believed to have committed the crime on suspicion that his wife was having an affair (with her ex-husband),” Shin Sang-jik, the chief of the Ansan Sangnok Police Station, said in a briefing. “We are currently looking into details of the case.”