Suicide Web Sites Shock S. Korea
Dec. 19 -- South Korea, one of the world’s fastest-growing Internet markets, has been shocked by news of a contract murder and suicide pact allegedly arranged through a Web site.
On Monday, authorities arrested a 26-year-old man on suspicion of failing to prevent the suicides of two people he met through a Web site offering advice on how to commit suicide.
The man, identified only by his surname Kim, was with the victims just before they drank poison Dec. 13 at a motel in Kangnung city on the east coast, police said.
There are suspicions he provided the poison.
Willing Victims for Contract Killer
On an earlier occasion, Kim and a woman asked a man they met online, named Yoon, to kill them, police said.
The attempt failed. Yoon, 19, was arrested Friday for a separate and apparently “successful” contract suicide arranged over the World Wide Web.
For about $910, Yoon reportedly stabbed to death a 29-year-old man in Seoul on Dec. 12.
The victim, also named Kim, was reportedly depressed because his girlfriend died last year, but lacked to courage to kill himself, according to The Korea Times.
Yoon apparently met the victim through an Internet suicide site and expressed no remorse for the death, authorities said.
“I killed him like he asked,” The Korea Herald quoted Yoon as telling police. “I thought it was a way of helping him.”
More Deaths
Yoon was also found to have attempted to kill two more people, but failed when they resisted in the end, according to the Times, quoting police sources.
A 23-year-old woman visited Yoon at his home in mid-November and asked him to kill her.
“I tried to strangle her but gave up when she seemed to be in so much pain,” Yoon said in the Times.
Last Thursday, a 28-year-old college student, also named Kim, committed suicide with another student in Kangnung after drinking poison. Kim was said to have earlier requested Yoon’s help, but put up a struggle.
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