During Yoo’s high school years is when most of the juvenile crimes began, Yoo was often arrested for theft and spent a good amount of time in juvenile detention before continuing his criminal acts into his adulthood. Yoo would steal cash, cameras, and cars as a way to be able to provide for his family as he would get money from either selling or stealing. It is also said that throughout his early adulthood, Yoo was constantly in and out of prison. In 2000, 31-year-old Yoo was charged with having non-consensual intercourse with what was reported to have been a 15-year-old girl. There isn’t much information on what had happened but it is said that Yoo was in jail for quite some time when this occurred. 

After being released from jail, Yoo soon began his series of gruesome murders. It is said that Yoo would target what was, at the time, the wealthy area of Sinsa-dong and he would target either the elderly and their family, if they were any around during the time of the murder, or he would target women. Once Yoo was done with his murders he would clean up a bit of the crime and then would proceed to trash the house to make it appear as if it was a break-in and then would exit either through the gate of the victim’s house or through their gate. Investigators, after the first murders, would find evidence of Yoo via a footprint found in the victim’s house.

In late 2003, Yoo stopped his killings for some time after getting into a relationship with an escort girl he met. The couple was together for roughly two months before splitting up after the girlfriend had found out about Yoo and his criminal background, which investigators believe was the main cause and motive for some of his next killings and the victims. Before committing his murders on escort girls, Yoo would pose as an officer to gain the trust of his victims. Once victims grew suspicious of Yoo he would proceed to kill them, which is what happened to one of the victims after they suspected Yoo wasn’t a police officer due to Yoo driving a van and not having another officer with him.

This killing ended up going insanely public because the victim had died inside a van that was burned and Yoo, once caught, confessed he burned the van after cutting himself in the process of his victim fighting back. From May to July of 2004, Yoo began a series of murders of escort women. It is said that Yoo would call for an escort and he would arrange for them to meet in certain places/areas. Some of these murders would take place in Yoo’s apartment. After consensual intercourse, Yoo would allow the women to use his restroom where he would then proceed to murder them. Yoo confessed to having cut, cleaned off any blood, and stuffed his victims into bags. He confessed to having stuffed fresh Kimchi, a traditional Korean cuisine, inside the bags to overlap the smell of the decomposing bodies.  

Two days after committing his final murder on July 15, 2004, Yoo was finally arrested. A man named Mr. Noh, the owner of the escort service, and investigators had worked together in planning out ways to catch Yoo. While in the custody of the police, Yoo would fake a seizure where he would successfully escape the police and go to his house to destroy evidence. After 11 hours Yoo was caught and found walking at a crossroad by police officers. Upon his second arrest, Yoo confessed to killing 26 people. When Yoo was being moved, officers had him wear a yellow raincoat along with a mask and hat concealing his identity; the raincoat gave him the nickname “The Raincoat Killer”.

If you are interested in knowing what it was like for investigators to capture Yoo and the process of his murders, check out Netflix’s three-episode documentary “The Raincoat Killer: Chasing a Predator in Korea” or watch the TV show “The Chaser”, which is based on Yoo’s story.