A man in his 40s once named as a leading suspect in the serial disappearance of two elementary school children in Gangjin 26 years ago has been detained again, only a month after completing a prison term, for violating an order barring him from carrying a weapon while under probation supervision.
The man, identified by his surname Ma, was arrested on the 16th on charges of violating the law on the attachment of electronic monitoring devices and is being held at the Seoul Eastern Detention Center, according to legal sources on the 19th.
In August 2018, Ma was sentenced to eight years in prison for raping a woman in her 40s in Seoul's Jungnang District, along with a 10-year order requiring his personal information to be disclosed and notified. He completed the full term and was released on the 8th of last month, after which he lived in temporary housing in Dongdaemun District under probation supervision.
The Ministry of Justice issued an order after his release barring him from carrying a weapon. The probation office recently received information that Ma was in possession of a weapon, searched his residence and applied to the Seoul Northern District Prosecution Office for a warrant to detain him. Under the electronic monitoring law, a court imposing an attachment order may also impose conditions such as a ban on carrying weapons.
Ma was named as a suspect in the disappearances of two elementary school students in Gangjin, South Jeolla Province, in 2000 and 2001. During an investigation in 2010, he confessed to killing the two missing children and disposing of their bodies and took part in a site reenactment, but he later retracted his statement and was never punished in the case because no direct physical evidence was secured. In 2002, he was sentenced to 15 years in prison for killing his wife's younger brother with a knife.