A brief message

According to an online skivvies outlet, today was the third annual National Underwear Day. Have to give the company credit for trying to create a national holiday as a marketing tool. In honor of the holiday, I thought I'd post an update about Oregon's most infamous panty raider, Sung Koo Kim.

When Brooke Wilberger vanished from the parking lot of a Corvallis apartment complex in May 2004, investigators quickly turned their attention to Kim, who had recently been arrested for stealing women's underwear from dorm rooms and college laundromats around the state. When police searched Kim's home, they found more than 3,000 pairs of pilfered panties, in addition to a computer full of violence-themed porn and some evidence that Kim was overly interested in an OSU athlete who resembled Wilberger. Kim actually had an alibi of sorts: financial transactions were made from his home computer within minutes of Wilberger's disappearance, and three hours later, he appeared on security camera footage at a store in Tigard, 90 miles away from Corvallis.

Kim was considered a "person of interest" until February 2005, when police finally admitted they had no evidence that he was involved. Later the same year, Joel Patrick Courtney was arrested for kidnapping and murdering Wilberger. But Kim was still considered dangerous, and remained in jail until his trial this year.

Last week, Kim was sentenced to 11 years in prison for theft, burglary and child pornography. I really think this guy needs treatment that he probably won't receive in prison. There was an interesting article in the Oregonian this past weekend about Kim's mother and her goal to become an advocate for the mentally ill. She discussed the Korean taboos around mental illness and shared her own shame and guilt over the situation. It's worth a read.