A farmer in his 30s was booked without detention for allegedly causing damage to private property, specifically a wall mural within the city, Gwangju police said Tuesday.
The 33-year-old suspect is accused of spraying black paint onto a wall mural on the exterior wall of the building in Dong-gu, Gwangju City at 1:55 p.m. on March 20.
The owner of the building had commissioned a professional artist to paint the mural, depicting a blue sky with large angel wings, for the price of about 4 million won ($3,700).
The damaged wall mural is pictured. Photo courtesy of Gwangju Donbu Police Station (Yonhap)
The mural has been extremely popular with locals, who posted pictures of themselves standing in front of the wings, on social media.
The suspect claimed that the wall mural was “simply too good” and that he damaged it “out of jealousy.”
Police caught the suspect after lifting his fingerprints from the empty spray paint cans left behind near the crime scene.
By Catherine Chung (
cec82@heraldcorp.com)