KSIS : The Mad Tiger of Korea

This second edition of the KSIS brings us back to April 1982, during the biggest massacre in the history of Korea. The person at the origin of this tragic event is named WOO BUM KON, also nicknamed «mad tiger» because of his highly violent reputation, which will be proven most truthful this sad spring evening.

The very origin of WOO BUM KON is mysterious. After the massacre that will make him famous, the police and the government seeking to make his existence disappear, it is not clear today whether he was born on February 24, or March 18, 1955. Opening his eyes for the first time in the Busan region, he is the third child of four boys, and quickly stands out as the most introverted. Growing up, it is almost naturally that he becomes disinterested in studies and begins to regularly miss classes. Yet, as the son of a policeman, he dreamed of following his father’s footsteps, but, unfortunately, the later would suddenly die of colon cancer before he could see his son in uniform.

Upon the death of his father, WOO BUM KON becomes a violent and troubled teenager. Plunged into depression, he begins to self-harm and he almost failed the Korean equivalent of the baccalaureate, the «suneung». When he joined the army for compulsory service, it was to his surprise that he became the star of the regiment, in his sniper position. He who was the school dunce becomes a star of the navy for his sharp eye. Fulfilling his dream, he becomes a policeman at the end of his service.

At that time, it was very easy to join the police. Indeed, the school career was not looked at, and no psychological assessment was done beforehand. In 1981, he took up his post in a police station in the Gamman district of Busan. There, his violence increases, so that he gains the name of «mad tiger», because he is known to hit the villagers looking at him askance, or suspects during interrogations. But it is above all for his shooting qualities that he stands out.

In April of the same year, he was transferred to Seoul in the special unit in charge of the protection of the presidential house, «Chongwadae». Being assigned to the presidential unit is a hallmark of any police officer. Life in the capital is very different from the more rural one where WOO BUM KON grew up. But again, the «mad tiger» resurfaces. Striking, insulting, and assaulting many people, the policeman was in just a few months sent back to Uiryeong, a rural district northwest of Busan. On December 30, he began his new job at the local police station, and with his meagre salary following his vertiginous fall, he plunged once again into depression.

In early 1982, he met a young woman and it was love at first sight. Too poor to marry, they decide to move together at his girlfriend’s parents house, planning an official ceremony for the fall, time to save money. Even if it is a little less the case today, it was very frowned at the time for a couple to live together without getting married, especially since WOO BUM KON seemed to live for many thanks to his in-laws. In the village, he is known to be a failed officer of the capital, violent, and has a questionable private life. Years of anger and distress have already settled in him following the death of his father, and an unfortunate little incident is enough to break the camel’s back.

On April 26, 1982, while he was taking a nap before going to work, a fly landed on his chest. His girlfriend seeing this, decides to give him a violent slap, to crush the fly, waking WOO BUM KON. Mad with rage, he thinks that the fly does not exist, and that she deliberately wanted to hit him, and then begins to beat her, as well as her cousin alerted by the cries of the young woman who ran to help her. Once his rage has passed, and his hands covered with blood, the mad policeman goes to a bar where he drinks without counting. It was drunk that he then went to the police station around 7 pm, hastened to take the keys of the armory, and equipped himself with two M1 automatic rifles, 180 cartridges and 7 grenades. The massacre can begin.

Just out of the police station, he shoots a young man of 26 who passed by, then a young 18 after drinking a coke with him near a supermarket. He then goes to a store, injures the manager, and kills his wife and two daughters, not realizing that the manager was still alive. Crossing a market, he shoots three passers-by, then goes to his girlfriend to try to kill her. Again, he will not realize that she survives. He continues his fatal quest in a post office also used to manage the lines of communication between Uiryeong and the other cities and villages around. He shot down two operators and cut all the telephone cables, without noticing that one of the two operators managed to restore one just before dying. The lines being cut, it was impossible for the population to call the police, nor for the police station to call for reinforcement once the police will see the misdeeds of WOO BUM KON.

Proud of his first murders, he then goes to the town hall at around 8pm where a party is held at the same time, and will kill seven people after shooting a dozen of them. As for 8:20 pm the head of the civil defense arrived at the town hall to join the party, he tried to reach the police stations of the region without success, and will be injured, but succeeded in joining that of Uiryeong by car. During the forty minutes following his arrival, the police looked for the keys of the armory that WOO BUM KON had well thought to close before starting his massacre. In fact, the policemen at the Uiryeong police station were so busy playing cards together that they had not noticed that their colleague had vanished with weapons, and was killing all the villagers.

In case of force majeure, as in this case, the police have the right to call on the army, but for an unexplained reason, did not. Free of his movements, the killer went to another market and killed seven people again, then arrived in another village at 10:50 pm where he attended a funeral vigil. After having eaten and discussed with the bereaved relatives of the deceased, someone remarked to him that his weapons looked fake for a policeman, having presented himself to the vigil under his title of office. Angered by this remark, he pulled out a grenade, killing 24 civilians. He then passed from house to house, and killed anyone who opened the door to him, most of them opening it because they were facing a policeman. WOO BUM KON told them he was looking for North Korean spies. Sometimes, annoyed that he was not opened, he broke in, a family of four being found dead in their bed, probably killed during their sleep.

After so many escapades and tired and his actions, he went to ask for hospitality at one of his friends, who had no idea what was going on outside. He arrived about two o’clock, and slept there until five o’clock. When he woke up, he went to another village, and took a family hostage, aware that his crimes would soon catch up with him. The day before, the police chief arrived at the police station at one o’clock in the morning, when he was supposed to be on call all night. In reality, he went to a reception in Busan, then spent a moment in a sauna, unaware of the massacre. On his return, he decided initially not to intervene, because it was dark. Then, seeing that the killing continued, requisitioned 37 policemen from the village and the surroundings to deploy them under a bridge at two o’clock in the morning, waiting and especially hoping that WOO BUM KON will pass on it. For an hour they will all wait there, as reinforcements were coming, too afraid to really intervene knowing the reputation of sniper of the «mad tiger».

Around three o’clock in the morning, the search really begins, then the police finally find WOO BUM KON around six o’clock, hidden in the house of his hostages. When he feels cornered, the killings end. He pulls out two more grenades, killing himself and three of the four hostages. In total, the «mad tiger» stole the lives of 57 people, aged between one week and seventy years. Five more people will die from their injuries in hospital, bringing the total to 62. Still considered the worst shooting in the country and even the world at the time, it appeared in the Guinness World Record Book until the 1990s when Guinness removed this category.

Why did WOO BUM KON commit such atrocities? No one will ever know, but hypotheses abound. Many believe that he had an inferiority complex that had worsened upon his return from the capital and that he could no longer stand the mockery of the villagers about his concubinage with his fiancée, before the wedding. The status of last of the class years ago and the death of his father resulted in a rage ready to explode until the derisory episode of the fly. This tragic evening is not considered a mass murder, but a chain murder. Indeed, what distinguishes a chain killing is a period of calm between the murders. Here, although the killing took place from 7pm to 6am, he rested from 2am to 5am. If we remove the time of breaks and walks, the killing lasted about height hours.

The villages of Uiryeong and affected villages were all greatly angry at the police and its ineffectiveness, as the fact that they could not find the keys to the armory for forty minutes, Then they wasted time waiting for the head of the police station who was in a sauna. For the villagers, the culprits are as much WOO BUM KON as the police. It is important to note that entire families were killed, but were not in the same place, as was the family of the store manager, although the exception was the one who survived. Aware of the justified ill-being of the population, the surviving families were quickly compensated and funds were paid to the city to pave its roads and renovate them. Roads, however, were never involved in the killing, not having prevented the police from moving. The president of the time, CHUN DOO HWAN, even went to Uiryeong to inaugurate the establishment of a compensation committee, which did not exist until then.

Reforms were also made in the police, including the competition being made stricter. You must have a higher education diploma in addition to the baccalaureate, and have an exemplary and assiduous background. The police chief was initially prosecuted for not respecting his night shift and was eventually acquitted because, even if he had been at the police station, he could not have known about the killing because of the cut lines of communication. As for the policemen who did not notice that WOO BUM KON left the police station at the beginning of his guard armed with rifles and grenades, they received between 10 and 12 months in prison. Considered a national disgrace for the country, this tragic event prompted the interior minister to resign, and for many years it was hidden that the «mad tiger» had worked for the presidential house.

During his autopsy, WOO BUM KON’s brain was sent to an investigative service to analyze it and determine whether certain factors could predict deviations such as murder, without success. Finally, in the months that followed, many villagers organized soul weddings: the souls of singles, couples, or fiancés who died during the attack were married posthumously so that they would not spend eternity alone. The massacre of the mad killer reminds everyone that behind honest members of the police can always hide a killer lurking in the dark, waiting to commit the worst misdeeds.