A couple days back, I posted about the South Korean authorities finding the identity of the Hwaseong Serial Killer. His name has been officially released by the police there.

Between 1986 and 1991 a record number of police officers were mobilised to try to find the person who raped and murdered women in rural parts of Hwaseong, south of the capital, Seoul.

They investigated 21,000 individuals and compared the fingerprints of about 20,000 more without success, and the case inspired South Korean filmmaker Bong Joon-ho’s 2003 box office hit Memories of Murder.

But using the latest forensic techniques to retrieve DNA, officers have identified Lee Chun-jae, 56, as a suspect in at least three of the killings, said Ban Gi-soo of the Gyeonggi Nambu provincial police agency.

Samples collected from evidence, including a victim’s underwear, matched Lee’s, the police said.

Lee is serving a life sentence for raping and murdering his sister-in-law in 1994. He denies involvement in the Hwaseong murders and the 25-year statute of limitations has expired, meaning he will not be prosecuted, police added.

theguardian.com

The statute of limitations ran out in 2006, but at the very least, it now seems the mystery has been solved.

Personally, I hope that one of these days in the not-too-distant future, we’ll finally know who the Zodiac Killer was. Even if he’s deceased, it’d be nice to finally have a name, not a moniker.