A 37-year-old man identified by his surname Lee, who murdered his girlfriend in cold blood after getting into an argument with her over money, was indicted by Seosan Police.

This past November 11, around 7am, Lee strangled his late girlfriend, a 43-year-old woman identified as Kim, until she gasped her last breath. Lee is suspected of tampering with evidence by setting fire to a vehicle with Kim's corpse inside, in an attempt to hide the murder. 

Lee, who is a resident of Taean County, had traveled to Jeju Island with Kim the day before the murder to look for an adequate location to set up a restaurant. Lee and Kim had argued over money for the two days they were at Jeju Island, and when Kim allegedly 'ignored him,' Lee lost his temper and strangled her to death.

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Lee stuffed the corpse into his bag, threw it into the backseat of a rental car, and returned to Taean County with the corpse still inside. Lee then set fire to the vehicle this past December 1 near a beach in Sowon-myeon. Lee was then said to have testified to the police that the rental vehicle had combusted from a car accident.

However, police found the damage on the corpse too great for the incident to be a pure accident and took notice of an inflammable substance they detected in the vehicle, prompting them to initiate an investigation.

Through their investigation, police pinpointed the location of Lee's gasoline purchase and where he had boarded the vessel to go to Jeju, and eventually managed to get a confession out of Lee.