Mysterious hotel deaths of 2 women, 2 men under probe

(Herald DB)

South Korean police said Thursday they are investigating the deaths of two women and two men at a hotel in Paju, Gyeonggi Province, with preliminary findings indicating the women were murdered by the men, who later jumped to their deaths from the building.

Officers at Paju Police Station were investigating the case of a missing woman, which led them to a hotel in Yadang-dong, Paju on Wednesday. They tracked the victim to the hotel and knocked on the door of the room where the two men were staying. One of them answered and claimed that the woman had left the night before to go to the commercial district in the nearby city of Goyang.

The police went down to the hotel lobby to check if the woman had indeed left the building, during which time, the two men jumped out of their hotel room to their deaths. A search of their room uncovered the missing woman's body, along with a body of another woman. Both of the women had been tied up.

Surveillance footage of the hotel found that the two female victims had entered the hotel room separately, a while after the two men -- who were found to be friends -- had entered the hotel room together. Investigation of the bodies Tuesday indicated that the women were murdered.

No indications of sexual crimes or drug use have been found as of this reporting, nor was the exact nature of the women's relationship with the men clear. Police are conducting forensic analysis of the men's phones and autopsies of their bodies to find what exactly transpired at the site.

By Yoon Min-sik(minsikyoon@heraldcorp.com)