Woo Bum-kon

On the afternoon of April 26, 1982, Woo had an argument with his live-in girlfriend, Chun Mal-soon (전말순), after she had woken him by swatting a fly on his chest. Enraged, Woo left the house and went to the police station, where he reported for duty at 4:00 p.m. According to early reports, he began drinking heavily, though eyewitnesses later stated that he did not appear drunk during his rampage. According to local officials, he would have been unable to cover 4 km (2.5 mi) of difficult, rocky terrain while intoxicated.

At about 7:30 p.m., Woo returned home, assaulted his girlfriend and smashed their furniture before making his way to the reservists' armory and gathering several weapons, consisting of two M2 carbines, two handguns, at least 180 rounds of ammunition, and seven hand grenades. Some reports stated that the other officers were at a meeting, and he therefore managed to grab the weapons unnoticed,[7] though others mentioned that he had intimidated the guards to gain access.

At approximately 9:30 p.m., Woo shot his first victim and entered the local post office, where he killed three phone operators and cut off the telephone lines. He next went to Torongni, where he threw a grenade and shot at passers-by in the marketplace, killing six people. He also wounded Chun Mal-soon, who had gone to investigate after hearing shots in the village. From that point on, he proceeded from village to village, taking advantage of his position as a police officer to gain entry to the houses and shoot their inhabitants.

At 10:30 p.m., Woo took 18-year-old Kim Ju-dong (김주동) hostage and moved to Ungye-Ri (운계리), where he ordered Kim to get him a soft drink from a grocery store owned by 52-year-old Shin We-do (신외도). After getting what he had asked for, Woo killed Kim and then attacked the store owner and his family. Shin We-do managed to escape after being shot in the leg, though his wife Son Won-jeom (손원점) and his daughters Chang-sun (창순) and Su-jeong (수정) were killed.[9] Woo continued his shooting at the market-place, killing a total of 18 people in that village, before making his way towards Pyongchon-Ni (평촌리).

At Pyongchon-Ni, he shot a family of four in their beds and then went to another house where the owner was awake. When the owner of the house saw the armed policeman and asked what had happened, Woo explained that there was an alert as North Korean agents had been spotted. The man invited Woo into the house for dinner, during which the latter complained about his small salary and his transfer from Pusan to the countryside. Woo eventually began shooting at the guests after one of them had remarked that his ammunition did not look real. He killed twelve people in the house and a further eight in the streets, thus leaving a total of 24 people dead in Pyongchon-ni.

Although police were alerted within minutes of the first shots being fired, it took them an hour to gather a team of 37 officers to search for the gunman, and the national police headquarters in Seoul were not informed until 1:40 a.m.[10] Around that time, just 4 km (2.5 mi) from the police station in Kungryu, Woo found refuge in a farmhouse belonging to 68-year-old Suh In-Su (서인수), whom he told that he was chasing a Communist infiltrator, and that the family should gather in the main room of the house so he could protect them. When the family gathered at his request, he held them hostage.

Two hours later, police eventually caught up with him, and as forces closed in, Woo strapped two grenades to his chest and detonated them, killing himself and three of his hostages. Suh himself survived gravely injured.[11] Four rounds of ammunition and one hand grenade were recovered by police from inside the farmhouse.[9]

When the rampage finally ended, 55 people and Woo himself were dead, while around 42 others were wounded. Six of the injured later died from their injuries, including a child who died on May 8. At that time, the injured were being treated in hospitals in Jinju and Masan.[12]

Chun Mal-soon later said that her boyfriend "suffered from an inferiority complex and had been bothered by villagers' comments on their living together unmarried".[13] Later on, the provincial chief of police was suspended and four other officers were arrested for negligence of duty.[4][14]

Child grieves after losing his family in the massacre