THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, August 13, 1995 TAG: 9508130667
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
LENGTH: Short : 37 lines
A North Korean suspected of ordering the killing two Virginia Beach missionaries in Far East Russia has disappeared and is believed dead, a Russian newspaper reported.
Chan Kyn Son, 32, was handed over to North Korean authorities after his arrest days after the March 28 slayings of Dr. Chu Hon Yi, 60, and his wife, Kei Wol Yi, 59, both of Virginia Beach, Va., the Izvestia newspaper said Friday.
The couple were found dead in their apartment in Khabarovsk, a Russian city 200 miles from the Sea of Japan. The Yis, active in Tidewater Korean Baptist Church in Virginia Beach for two decades, were missionaries for the Southern Baptist Convention and had been in Khabarovsk since 1993.
Son confessed to Khabarovsk authorities that he had paid two men $100 each to kill the Yis because, he claimed, they had failed to fulfill a promise to get him to South Korea, the newspaper said. He had reportedly escaped from a North Korean-run logging camp in Siberia.
Russian authorities handed Son over to the local North Korean mission on condition he be kept in the area during their investigation, the report said.
Izvestia cited an unidentified ``reliable source'' as saying Son was dead, and that his remains had been shipped back to North Korea.
Mr. Yi was killed by blows to the head; Mrs. Yi was strangled. Nothing appeared missing or disturbed in their apartment, police said.
KEYWORDS: MURDER-FOR-HIRE by CNB