The Last Time We Saw Her. Robert Falcon Scott

of the reason the bail was set so high was the discovery of certain very disturbing things found on Sung Koo Kim’s computer. He had over forty thousand images of women being tortured, whipped, burned, and branded. He had also made two videos of young women at a Laundromat. The women did not know they were being videotaped. Even more important, law enforcement had discovered that Kim had looked up on the Internet about countries that did not have extradition to the United States.

      Because of these revelations Noble, of the CPD, told the media that the Wilberger family expressed “concern at the contents of the police affidavits. Overall, it’s disturbing information.”

      Once again Kim’s lawyer declared, “We’ve provided substantial evidence that he was not involved with the Wilberger disappearance in Corvallis.” The so-called “substantial” evidence was that Sung Koo Kim was making online stock trades via Ameritrade on the morning that Brooke went missing, and then he went to a Circuit City store with his father in the Portland area. Hoffman declared that a surveillance camera at the Circuit City store backed up Kim’s claim.

      Multnomah County district attorney Michael “Mike” Schrunk, however, stated that Kim’s alibi was not iron-clad. DA Schrunk related that Sung Koo Kim had been at Circuit City, as he said, but he was there at 12:52 P.M., nearly three hours after Brooke may have been abducted. The drive from Corvallis to Tigard generally took about an hour and a half. That still gave Kim time either to deposit her alive somewhere, or kill her and dispose of her body in an isolated area. According to Schrunk, the Ameritrade deal and being at Circuit City could have just been attempts by Kim to create an alibi. And Schrunk noted that the Ameritrade situation occurred on Kim’s sister’s laptop computer and not on his own. She could have easily been the one online, not Sung Koo Kim.

      Schrunk then added something very interesting. He said that the lint from a dryer in the Oak Park Apartments complex that was in Kim’s possession matched lint coming from an OSU student named Lynsey’s undergarments. Lynsey was a swimmer on the OSU team and she had gone to the Oak Park Apartments on occasion. In fact, she was scheduled to move into the Oak Park Apartments in late May. Not only that, Lynsey had a resemblance to Brooke Wilberger, and Sung Koo Kim had downloaded information about Lynsey onto his computer. He not only had information about her, but a photo as well. Schrunk said, “There is significant evidence to connect Sung Koo Kim to Brooke Wilberger.”

      The next day, Kim’s lawyer was right back with statements of her own on the matter. Hoffman said that Kim’s alibi was good in the Brooke Wilberger situation. She stated, “The state affidavit puts the Wilberger disappearance as early as ten A.M., whereas the Corvallis Police Department states she went missing at ten-fifty A.M.” If that was the case, then Sung Koo Kim did not have time to abduct Brooke, get rid of her, and make it back to the Portland area to be at a Circuit City store at 12:52 P.M. Hoffman added, “The DA (Schrunk’s) document stretches the bounds of reality.”

      Despite Hoffman’s remarks, the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office was sticking by its statements. Deputy DA Norm Frink told reporters that Sung Koo Kim was still a very viable suspect in Brooke Wilberger’s disappearance. DDA Frink stated, “Even if he didn’t do that, the facts that make him a suspect are deeply disturbing in themselves.”

      Janet Lee Hoffman carried on more than just a war of words. She wrote a document to the presiding judge in Multnomah County, trying to get Sung Koo Kim’s bail reduced. Hoffman wrote: It is inappropriate to allow the Wilberger disappearance to drive the determination as to whether Mr. Kim should be detained in custody. Hoffman claimed that Kim’s family members corroborated his statements that he had been the one to make the Ameritrade transactions at 11:14 A.M. on May 24. Kim often used his sister’s laptop, Hoffman said. Then she added that Sung Koo Kim answered a phone call a short time later at the Kim residence from one of his sister’s friends. This was at 12:10 P.M. and on a landline. And then at 12:52 P.M., a surveillance camera proved that he was at the Circuit City store with his father. He was there until at least 1:30 P.M.

      Hoffman even backed up her claims with a polygraph test that Kim had taken after his initial arrest, concerning the Brooke Wilberger matter. The test was administered by an FBI-certified polygrapher named H. Hadley McCann. McCann had begun duty with the FBI in September 1972, and from 1989 to 1998, he was a regional polygraph examiner for the FBI. By 2002, he went into private practice and often conducted polygraph tests for local and state law enforcement agencies.

      McCann noted that in the case with Sung Koo Kim, he met Kim at the Yamhill County Jail. He advised Kim that the polygraph test was strictly voluntary, and that he could refuse to take one. Kim said that he understood, and decided to take a test.

      Kim was asked, “Did you abduct that girl from the apartment complex in Corvallis?” Kim answered, “No.”

      Then he was asked, “Did you have any contact with that missing girl on May 24, 2004?” Once again Kim answered, “No.”

      McCann’s conclusions were: It is the opinion of the examiner that the recorded responses to the questions were not indicative of deception.

      Polygraph tests can be a useful tool in investigations, but the Multnomah County DA’s Office knew they weren’t infallible. And adding to Sung Koo Kim’s woes was a new development with the Benton County District Attorney’s Office. District Attorney Scott Heiser wanted Kim’s bail in that county raised from $25,000 to $100,000. Heiser said that Kim posed a flight risk and danger to the community. Judge Locke Williams took Heiser’s request under advisement and then increased the bail amount to $100,000. Even if Kim was able, by some miracle, to raise the bail to spring him from Multnomah County, he now had a higher bail amount in Benton County to contend with.

      Wanting to know more about who Sung Koo Kim was, a reporter for the McMinnville News-Reporter spoke with a person named Richard Johnston, who had known Kim at Washington State University, where they had both been students. Richard and Kim had gone target shooting on occasion, and Richard related that he and some other guys at college had tried to include Kim in their activities. But according to Johnston, Kim was very reclusive, and his fascination with guns and porn began to turn the others off.

      This off-putting tendency only increased when Kim’s behavior started becoming more and more erratic. Kim told the others that he thought the Columbine school massacre was justified because the shooters had been teased and bullied. At another time, according to Johnston, Kim stated that he could kill at will because he was an “angel of Jesus Christ.” They absolutely shunned him after Kim brought an AR-15 semiautomatic assault rifle to the dorm.

      None of those things looked good for Sung Koo Kim as the days progressed in June 2004. But even the DAs in Yamhill, Multnomah, and Benton counties agreed that there was still not enough evidence to charge him with the disappearance of Brooke Wilberger. And all while the Kim/Wilberger possible connection percolated along, there were other events happening in the Wilberger case as well. Some of them were just as surprising as the Sung Koo Kim angle, and before long, both detectives and reporters were running in several different directions about possible Brooke Wilberger abductors.