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| Closed circuit camera footage shows the alleged killer, right, in an elevator with her victim, left. / Courtesy of Incheon Metropolitan Police Agency |
By Lee Han-soo
Police have arrested a female high school dropout for murdering and chopping up the body of a girl, 8, whose parents had reported her missing.
The dropout, 17, stabbed the girl several times, then chopped up the body and disposed the remains in two trash bags inside a water tank on the roof of her apartment, said the police.
The teenager had been treated for seven years for depression, auditory hallucinations and anxiety issues before dropping out of high school, according to Incheon Yeonsu police.
At 12:40 p.m. Wednesday, the accused was seen loitering around a playground near the victim's school, police said. The accused then took the little girl to her apartment.
The victim's classmate testified that the girl had followed the teenager after trying to borrow a phone to call her mother.
The two shared no former connection.
After being arrested, the teenager allegedly admitted killing the girl, but said she has no recollection.
Experts speculated that the teenager might be suffering from multiple personality disorder, pointing out that she was first approached by the victim, which indicated the killing had not been planned.
But the specialists also pointed out that the aftermath of the murder was meticulous.
"Although the assailant lived on the 15th floor, the closed circuit camera only shows her getting off at the 13th floor and nowhere else,"criminal psychology expert Lee Su-jung said on CBS radio news.
"There is no footage of her carrying the body up to the roof."
Meanwhile, police are investigating the possibility of an accomplice after judging that it would have been difficult for the teenager to carry the body of the girl, who weighed about 20 kilograms, to the stairs and up the ladder from the roof to the water tank, which is about four to five meters above ground.
The teenager can be tried in court because she is no longer a minor, but she cannot be sentenced to death or life in prison because she is under 18.
The maximum sentence that she can receive is a 15-year jail term.
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