SEOUL - South Korea's police chief resigned Monday following public fury at a bungled case in which a woman was raped and murdered after frantically calling police for help.
National Police Agency chief Cho Hyun-Oh said he would step down to "take all responsibility... for unpardonable carelessness" by the police and asked the victim's family for forgiveness.
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"I express my deepest regret at the police's negligence which had such a horrendous result and attempts to cover it up with lies," Cho told a press conference.
The dismembered body of the 28-year-old woman was found on April 2 in the city of Suwon, south of Seoul, about 13 hours after she had called the police emergency number from her home to report a rape attempt.
She gave police a detailed location for her home before the intruder broke into her room on the evening of April 1. The phone line remained open for five more minutes, with the victim heard screaming in pain and begging for her life.
Police Monday morning found the killer, a 42-year-old Korean-Chinese immigrant worker, putting the victim's body parts into trash bags after dismembering the body at his home nearby.
Police admitted miscommunication between the emergency call centre and officers on duty as well as bureaucratic shortcomings, which led them to search the wrong area for hours.
They also admitted giving the media an exaggerated number of officers sent to check the neighbourhood after the case started to make headlines.
Cho vowed to help family members get proper state compensation. President Lee Myung-Bak will accept Cho's resignation, according to an aide quoted by Yonhap news agency.
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