At first, they looked like two separate disappearances. Then the bodies were found, and the same landlord appeared at the center of both cases. Jin Hyo Jung, 21, and Song In Hea, 22, were murdered in 2001, their bodies concealed in very different locations, and the investigation eventually led police to Kim Kyu Soo, who was convicted of both killings in 2003. But even after the verdict, the motive remained one of the case’s most disturbing unanswered questions.
Two Disappearances, One Landlord
Jin Hyo Jung was the first to disappear, in October 2001. She was a 21-year-old South Korean woman staying in Britain, and her disappearance initially gave investigators little reason to believe she was connected to another missing woman.
Then Song In Hea disappeared in December 2001. She was 22, also South Korean, and like Jin, had been connected to accommodation rented from Kim Kyu Soo. The connection between the two cases became increasingly difficult to ignore as investigators reconstructed the women’s final weeks.
What had looked like two separate disappearances was beginning to resemble a pattern. Both women had crossed paths with the same landlord, and both would ultimately be linked to the same murder investigation.
One Body Was Found in a Suitcase
The first breakthrough came when Jin’s body was discovered inside a suitcase on a country road near Askham Richard, North Yorkshire, in November 2001. The distance between London and the location where she was found made the discovery even more puzzling, because someone had gone to considerable effort to move and conceal her body.
Song’s body remained hidden for months longer. Investigators eventually found her remains inside a sealed cupboard at a property in east London, where the hiding place had been concealed from ordinary view.
The methods used to restrain the women became the reason the case was later labeled the “sticky-tape murders.” Prosecutors said both victims had been bound and that tape had been used around their faces, leading to their deaths by suffocation.
Two young women were murdered in London, and their bodies were hidden in two completely different places. Watch the video to uncover how investigators connected the disappearances to their landlord, how the evidence exposed the truth, and how the case ultimately ended in two life sentences.
Then the Money Raised a Bigger Question
As investigators examined the women’s financial records, another disturbing clue emerged: cash had been withdrawn using their PIN numbers. That immediately raised the possibility that the killings were connected to money and that information had been taken from the victims before their deaths.
Kim Kyu Soo was reported to have financial difficulties, giving the prosecution a plausible explanation for the withdrawals. But money was not the only possibility discussed during the case; investigators and prosecutors also considered whether the murders could have involved sexual or sadistic motives.
The difficulty was that none of those explanations fully answered the central question. The evidence could establish what happened and connect Kim to the killings, but the precise reason he committed them remained uncertain.
The Suspect Became the Man on Trial
Kim denied responsibility for the murders, but the case against him continued to grow as police pieced together the evidence. The discoveries surrounding the bodies, the women’s movements and the financial transactions presented the jury with a picture very different from the original mystery of two missing women.
At trial at the Old Bailey in London in March 2003, Kim admitted manslaughter in relation to Song’s death, but prosecutors continued to pursue murder charges. The jury ultimately found him guilty of murdering both women.
Kim Kyu Soo was sentenced to two life terms in prison. The conviction finally answered the question of who was responsible, but it did not provide the same certainty about motive.
The Motive Was Never Fully Resolved
That is what makes the case particularly unsettling. The investigation produced a clear legal outcome: two women were dead, Kim Kyu Soo was responsible and the court convicted him of both murders. Yet the exact combination of motives behind the killings remained unclear even after the trial.
Police also considered whether Kim might have been involved in other crimes, but those suspicions did not result in additional murder convictions. What remained firmly established were the two killings of Jin Hyo Jung and Song In Hea.
The case therefore ended with an unusual gap between certainty and explanation. There was enough evidence to put a man behind bars for life, but not enough to completely explain what drove him to kill two young women and go to such lengths to hide their bodies.
The deaths of Jin Hyo Jung and Song In Hea began as separate disappearances and became one of London’s most disturbing murder cases when investigators discovered their bodies hidden in a suitcase and a sealed cupboard. Their landlord, Kim Kyu Soo, was arrested, convicted of both murders in 2003 and sentenced to two life terms. Evidence pointed to financial motives and raised other possibilities, but the exact reason for the killings was never fully established. The case was solved in court—but its central question of why remained unanswered.
