A convicted killer on the loose has been captured thanks to a tip from a citizen after his escape from an isolated psychiatric ward in Gwangju, Gwangsan police said Tuesday.
A citizen called the police around 12:48 p.m. Monday, describing a “man looking a lot like the escapee.”
Dispatched officers said they immediately arrested the 48-year-old man surnamed Kim inside the Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology, located in Oryong-dong, Gwangju at 1 p.m.
Surveillance footage shows the man walking out of the psychiatric ward in Gwangju. (Yonhap)
Kim was wearing the same striped shirt and black sweatpants from the time of escape, police said.
He is said to have fled from the mental institution without an ankle monitor just when the guards left the gates open for a brief moment around 7:30 p.m. Sunday.
The patient was reportedly being treated for schizophrenic disorder, as ordered by the court, after serving his three-year prison sentence for murder of a fellow patient in 2011, according to reports.
By Catherine Chung (
cec82@heraldcorp.com)