Convicted serial killer commits suicide in prison

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SEOUL, Nov. 22 (Yonhap) -- A convicted serial murderer on death row died Sunday
after a suicide attempt in his prison cell, government officials said, suspecting
he took his own life out of anxiety over public opinion urging the enforcement of
death sentences.
Jeong Nam-gyu, 40, died at 2:40 a.m. Sunday in hospital after trying to kill
himself Saturday inside his cell at the Seoul Detention House in Uiwang, just
south of Seoul, police and Justice Ministry officials said.
The death row inmate hung himself with a make-shift rope made from plastic trash
bags, tying it on a strut on the wall of his cell where a television was placed,
according to the officials.
Jeong was placed in an intensive care unit of a nearby hospital shortly after a
prison guard learned of the suicide attempt around 6:35 a.m. Saturday. The
hospital tried to revive Jeong with artificial resuscitation overnight but
pronounced him dead early Sunday.
No will was discovered, but he left a memo on a notepad saying, "Life is like a
cloud" and that the government has no intention of abolishing capital punishment.
Preliminary examinations revealed that he died of a heart attack and a lack of
oxygen to the brain. The ministry requested that the National Institute of
Scientific Investigation perform an autopsy.
Jeong was convicted in 2007 and was given the death penalty for killing 13 people
and injuring seven others between January 2004 and April 2006, including two
children he had sexually assaulted. Many of the victims were women and children
living in southwestern Seoul.
Since its foundation in 1948, South Korea has executed a total of 920 people,
according to a ministry report. The last execution was carried out in December
1997 and there here had been an unofficial moratorium on the death penalty since
February 1998, when then President Kim Dae-jung -- who himself was sentenced to
death in 1980, but was later pardoned -- took office.
The London-based human rights group Amnesty International categorizes South Korea
as having "virtually abolished capital punishment".
The ministry suspects that Jeong killed himself because of anxiety amid a steady
rise in brutal crimes and public opinion that capital punishment should be
enforced.
The government and lawmakers have recently stepped up efforts against murder
suspects and child sex offenders following gruesome serial murder and child abuse
cases earlier this year.
Measures include the establishment of a "gene bank" to collect and store DNA
samples of convicts to use in criminal investigations and publicizing suspects'
identities. The ruling Grand National Party has also suggested holding
discussions with the government over the resumption of the death penalty.
Jeong's case marked the first case of a suicide by a criminal on death row since
February 2007, when another condemned criminal took his life by hanging himself
with a bedding string on a cross-rib of his cell's window.
Eighty-two prisoners committed suicide at correctional facilities after 2004,
government data showed. The ratio of suicide cases among 1,000 prisoners reached
30.5 persons as of 2006, topping the list of the Organization for Economic
Cooperation and Development.
odissy@yna.co.kr
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