It happened in the Burger King bathroom, with a knife. The scene of the crime and the murder weapon are known. But almost 20 years on, the “whodunit” part remains a mystery.  The tale of the 1997 Burger King murder, in which 22-year-old South Korean student Cho Joong-pil was killed in a seedy part of Seoul associated with drunk Americans, seemed straight from a movie. Indeed, there was a film made about the case a few years ago.  But the plot took a surprising twist this month when a California man — Arthur Patterson, now 36 — was hauled back into the dock.  In 1997, Patterson, the 17-year-old son of a U.S. military contractor, and Edward Lee, an 18-year-old Korean American, were eating at the Burger King in Itaewon, an area near the American military base in Seoul.  Cho, Patterson and Lee were in the bathroom at the same time. Cho, the student, was found dead on the floor with knife wounds to his neck. The bathroom was splattered with blood. Patterson was covered from head to toe in blood, while Lee had blood sprayed over him. Patterson burned his clothes afterwards, while Lee’s mother put his in the washing machine, according to local reports.  The men blamed each other for the murder.  It was Lee who was initially charged with murder, since he was taller than Cho and the stab wounds were made in a downward direction. Lee was convicted and sentenced to life in prison, which was later reduced to 20 years. Patterson was convicted of possessing an illegal weapon and destroying evidence, and given 18 months in prison, although he was soon pardoned.  But South Korea's Supreme Court exonerated Lee in 1998, citing a lack of evidence, putting the focus back on Patterson. By then, Patterson was back in the United States. South Korean prosecutors had neglected to extend his travel ban.  The case was relegated to the backburner until 2009, when the movie “The Case of the Itaewon Homicide” was released, rekindling the public’s interest and encouraging prosecutors to reopen the case. A local television station found Patterson was living in Sunnyvale, Calif.  In 2011, prosecutors indicted Patterson for the murder and started the extradition process. He arrived back in Seoul last month to face charges, accompanied by five Korean officials.  “It’s not right that they [Cho’s family] have to keep going through the pain over and over and over, but it’s not right that I’m here either,” Patterson told a scrum of reporters when he landed at Incheon airport last month with a T-shirt over his hands to conceal the handcuffs. “I’m still shocked that I’m even here.”  The trial began last week and Lee will appear as a witness in a hearing scheduled for Nov. 4.  The prosecutors are talking tough, insisting that they will be able to make the charges stick, even though they didn’t even charge Patterson with the murder in 1997.  “We didn’t just indict Patterson because Lee was found innocent,” an official within the prosecutor’s office told the Hankyoreh, a local paper. This suggests that the prosecutors have found additional evidence that they believe will lead to a guilty verdict, the paper reported.  But Patterson's lawyer, Oh Byung-joo, is arguing that that the statute of limitations has expired and his client can’t be tried again. He will call witnesses for the defense from December, with the trial expected to wrap up by February.  For his part, Oh will be sticking to the version of events that has Lee committing the crime.  "The crime was committed without a motive or purpose, which is only understandable when done by a hallucinating person," Oh said, saying Lee had a history of drug abuse, according to the Korea Times.  Yoonjung Seo in Seoul contributed to this post.  Anna Fifield is The Post’s bureau chief in Tokyo, focusing on Japan and the Koreas. She previously reported for the Financial Times from Washington DC, Seoul, Sydney, London and from across the Middle East.
An American has been extradited to face new charges relating to the murder of a South Korean student in a fast food restaurant bathroom.