Kang was born in 1970 and lived in Gyeonggi Province, in the area south of Seoul.
In October 2005 a fire at his home killed his fourth wife and his mother-in-law. It was recorded as an accident and he collected on the insurance, a sum reported at several hundred million won.
Between December 2006 and December 2008 he abducted and killed eight women, most of them picked up while waiting for transport late at night, raping and strangling them and burying the bodies. He was arrested on January 24, 2009 after the disappearance of a university student who had been seen getting into a car.
He confessed to ten killings in all, including the fire. He was convicted and sentenced to death on April 22, 2009.
He remains under sentence of death. South Korea has carried out no execution since December 1997 and is regarded internationally as abolitionist in practice, so the sentence means indefinite imprisonment. That is the position for everyone on South Korean death row, and it should be read into every South Korean death sentence in this roster.
The case caused a serious argument in South Korea about the police response to reports of missing women, several of the victims having been reported and the reports not connected.